Did Children's Health Defense podcast guest Pierre Kory prove that Texas' confirmation of a 2nd measles death of an unvaccinated 8-year-old in Lubbock was "100 Percent False"? No, that's not true: Kory, who in 2024 was stripped of his internal medicine credential, never examined the patient and said he based his claim on a partial copy of her medical file, none of which did he show as corroboration of his claim. The Texas Department of State Health Services press release declared the cause of death as measles pulmonary failure, citing licensed medical doctors.
Kory made the claim in an appearance on the April 8, 2025 (archived here) episode of a podcast by the anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense. He said of Texas' press release "That statement is 100% false". He continued:
Incorrect. That is not what the records show at all. I don't know if they reviewed the records before putting out that case. My sense is they probably just relied on the word of the doctors.
This is what the podcast's streaming video looked like at the time this was written:
(Source: ChildrensHealthDefense.org screenshot taken by Lead Stories)
Medical doctors typically declare cause of death of their patients, in Texas and most other U.S. jurisdictions.
In an April 9, 2025 email to Lead Stories, Texas Department of State Health Services' senior press officer, Lara Anton, said despite Kory's claims, there has been no change in Texas' finding in the death of an unvaccinated girl:
No. As I explained, it is standard practice for the doctor who was treating a patient in the hospital to determine the cause of death.
At 3:51 of the recording posted online, Kory said:
This is just getting exhausting, this constant fear-mongering by the media ... They're scaring people into getting what I think is a very dangerous vaccine. But by trying to scare them for what is typically extremely benign illness and you can see it in this case.
So, first of all, This young girl was previously healthy until a month ago. And although I couldn't review the records before the two hospitalizations that were kind of back to back, from talking with the father she started to become ill a month ago. Not with measles.
She was apparently diagnosed with Mononucleosis. Subsequent to that, she then was diagnosed with strep and then a pneumonia and was treated and remained ill throughout. She was having persistent fevers. And then the records that I reviewed, she was admitted to, her first admission was to this UMC medical center on arrival to the hospital.
Medical experts at The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases do not agree with Kory that measles is "extremely benign." It warns that about one of 1,000 childhood measles patients will die of it:
Measles spreads rapidly and Even in a mild case, measles is a miserable disease with high fever, sensitivity to light (photophobia), dehydration, cough, pneumonia (1 in 20), and rash.
Measles can result in seizures, deafness, blindness, permanent lung damage, and immune amnesia (wiping out of prior immune protection).
Measles can weaken the immune system and the central nervous system, leading to serious disease and even death years after measles infection.
Estimates show that 1-3 out of 1,000 children with measles will die.
Kory made his assertions verbally, referring to but not showing records nor lab results, nor links to independent medical exams or other reports customarily used in declaring a cause of death. Kory was not a pathologist or medical examiner before the American Board of Internal Medicine revoked his certification (archived here) in internal, pulmonary and critical care medicine.
(Source: ABIM.org screenshot taken by Lead Stories.)
As of April 9, 2025, when he made the claim, Kory had his own page on the website of Leading Edge, (archived here) a telemedicine clinic operated with Montana's Crow Nation under license of the First Nation Medical Board. That board says its mission is to "preserve, develop, and promote the practice of Indigenous Medicine."
The group says it "provides sovereign immune protection for its licensees, whose rights are supported by the World Health Organization through its 1962 Alma Ata Resolution that formally recognized "Medicina Alternativa" and Traditional Medicine."
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. did not endorse Kory's claim that measles did not kill 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand.
Kennedy posted to his government X.com account (archived here) a description of his visit with her family and specifically said the measles vaccine is the most effective way to slow the outbreak in Texas and elsewhere, writing:
... In early March, I deployed a CDC team to bolster local and state capacity for response across multiple Texas regions, supply pharmacies and Texas run clinics with needed MMR vaccines ... The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.
Lead Stories reached out to the staff of the hospital where Daisy Hildebrand died and will update this report when they respond to Kory's claims that their conclusions were false and that they misdiagnosed her illness and did not provide care that matches the standards of care for children with her symptoms.
Read more fact checks about the measles outbreak here.
