Decades of research have turned up no miracle treatment for measles, but studies show the M.M.R. shot is 97 percent effective in preventing the disease.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, is asking the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for an agencywide “scientific process” on treating measles and other conditions with medications as well as alternative therapies such as vitamins,

Kennedy claimed that drugs like budesonide and clarithromycin "have been shown very effective" for measles, but doctors say they don't fight the infection itself.