from the needless-suffering dept
You may be tired of hearing about measles by now, but measles is not tired of infecting Americans. It’s worth reminding ourselves that this is a disease that was declared gone in America. Cases and transmission rates were so low in 2000, thanks almost entirely to the widespread promotion and adoption of the MMR vaccine, that we officially put the disease on America’s pay-no-mind list.
But thanks to RFK Jr.’s promotion of vaccine conspiracy theories, ironically demoted in preference of conspiracy theories more recently of Tylenol and circumcision, fewer people got themselves or their children vaccinated and the case counts began to rise. The ultimate betrayal of our public health system was performed by Donald Trump and his compliant drones in Congress in putting Kennedy in charge of HHS and America’s health. That was combined with whatever that whole DOGE experience was supposed to be, which helped to reduce HHS staffing by at least 1/8th of its previous workforce. Once that was done, the consequences for disease control became inevitable.
You will have heard about the huge measles outbreak that began in Texas. We also just talked about another outbreak that is currently underway in South Carolina that is seeing hundreds of children in quarantine. But those are certainly not the only places where measles cases in at least double digits are popping up in 2025. Here’s a map that shows where cases are occurring, with the larger circles being a large number of cases.
It’s basically everywhere, including in Alaska and Hawaii. That map is also lagging behind CDC’s reported counts, which itself lags weekly, as the reporting is only updated every Wednesday. And those numbers? Yeah, they are almost certainly wildly under-reported.
Nearly two months after a deadly, massive measles outbreak in Texas was declared over, the highly contagious disease continues to spread across the country. The U.S. has now confirmed 1,596 cases this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the highest annual number in more than three decades.
But the true total could be even higher, says Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“If you talk to people on the ground, including not only in Texas, but other states, they all say the same thing, which is that the numbers are much worse than that. Probably closer to 5,000 cases,” Offit says. “And it’s not done.”
Not by a long shot. If you’re not from the Southwest, you probably haven’t even heard about the new outbreak occurring along the border of Arizona and Utah, where over 130 total cases of measles have been reported just this year. That’s about half the number of measles cases that occurred in 2024 nationally. Minnesota also is seeing a surge in new cases very recently. While the officially reported case count there is listed at 20, experts expect that to grow as those cases have been popping up these past few weeks.
So how many outbreaks have there been this year? Way more than you probably think, and definitely way more than Kennedy or anyone at HHS is talking about.
All told, the CDC has confirmed 44 measles outbreaks in 41 states this year. The agency defines an outbreak as three or more cases that are linked. The vast majority of cases were in people who were unvaccinated; 27% percent have been in children under the age of 5. About 1 in 8 measles cases have resulted in hospitalization.
This is all preventable. We can’t seriously want to go back to the days like in 1990 when there were nearly 28,000 cases of measles… can we? And what horrible, painful thing do we have to do to make sure more people, and especially children, aren’t getting this horrific and deadly disease?
Well, if you believe the libtard nerds over at Harvard, you just have to get a couple of shots.
While news about measles in recent months may have been a surprise, it’s also alarming. Experts warn that the number of cases (and possibly deaths) are likely to increase. And due to falling vaccination rates, outbreaks are bound to keep occurring. One study estimates that between nine and 15 million children in the US could be susceptible to measles.
But there’s also good news: we know that measles outbreaks can be contained and the disease itself can be eliminated. Learn how to protect yourself and your family. Engage respectfully with people who are vaccine hesitant: share what you’ve learned from reliable sources about the disease, especially about the well-established safety of vaccination.
Too late, Harvard. This country has been conditioned to distrust “experts” and “knowledge” and “data.” We do shit on vibes now.
This is going to get worse before it gets better. The story of how we eliminated measles long ago is found in that same 1990 statistic I cited earlier. The public was so horrified with what was happening to children in this country that they were ready to get a safe and effective MMR vaccine to put it to an end.
Why in the hell do we have to wait for those horrors to resurface before we put this diseased genie back in the bottle?
Filed Under: cdc, health and human services, measles, preventable diseases, rfk jr.
