The number of measles cases recorded in the United States this year has surpassed 2,000. Last year, it took until December to reach that grim milestone.
The country hasn’t seen numbers like this in more than three decades, and they are likely to get worse given the relatively low levels of vaccination across much of the country.
It’s a reminder that even as the Trump administration has backed off its anti-vaccine messaging in recent months, the damage it has wrought will echo for a long time.
Public health officials are scrambling to contain outbreaks of the highly contagious disease in multiple states, largely in rural areas. Pennsylvania recorded 10 cases last week, primarily in Lancaster County. Virginia’s count jumped by more than 30 cases in recent weeks, centered most around Buckingham County. Utah and South Carolina also continued to record new cases in the past few weeks after experiencing large outbreaks earlier this year, though fortunately those crises seem to be cooling off.
Most of the cases this year have occurred among kids and young adults. More than 90 percent of them were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. Six percent have required hospitalization.
And it’s not just measles. Cases of other vaccine-preventable illnesses such as whooping cough, rotavirus and Hemophilus influenza Type B are all rising as parents decline to give their kids shots. That’s not only dangerous for those children but also those who are too young to get immunizations, as well as immunocompromised people whose bodies are unable to mount a response to surging pathogens.
The decline in vaccination predates this administration, but rhetoric from officials, especially Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., supercharged skepticism toward vital public health tools. That’s prompted enormous backlash, including among Senate Republicans — so much so that the White House reportedly felt compelled to sideline Kennedy on the issue. The administration has also needed to withdraw multiple nominees for health agencies because of previous anti-vaccine comments.
Whether this shift is permanent remains to be seen. Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to pare back recommended childhood vaccines, even though similar changes announced in March by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were blocked in federal court.
At the same time, Kennedy is still reportedly pushing to craft new “research” to support his long-debunked claims that vaccines are unsafe.
The ultimate outcome of such efforts would be to make it harder for parents to access these medical innovations to keep kids safe. It would be like lining your house with kindling as wildfires spread nearby. Someone’s bound to get burned.
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