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Before the measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, there were over 500,000 cases annually in the United States. An estimated 48,000 people were hospitalized, and over 400 died each year. Within three years of the vaccine’s introduction, the number of U.S. cases dropped to under 100,000, and by 2000, there were no measles cases reported in America.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles disappeared in 2000 “thanks to a very high percentage of people (over 95 percent) receiving the safe and effective measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.” The vaccine works.
However, thanks to false vaccine information promoted mainly by Republican officials at all levels of government, the percentage of vaccinated Americans dipped below 95% in some Republican-governed states and counties, and the virus came back. Over 80% of the cases in 2025 have been found in Texas, where the vaccination rate is especially low.
In a medical alert to staff at Carroll Hospital in Westminster, Dr. Mark Olszyk, the hospital’s chief medical officer, warned staff to look out for measles, which he described as significantly more contagious than the flu or the cold. As an indication of how quickly the virus spreads, on Feb. 25, the number of measles cases in the United States was 124 across a few states, according to the CDC. Less than one month later, on March 21, there were 378 cases, including 283 children, across 15 states. About 95% of the cases were unvaccinated.
For a comparison, during the entire previous year (2024), there were 285 cases in the United States. “This is going to be a large outbreak,” Katherine Wells, director of public health in Lubbock, Texas, said. “I’m really thinking this is going to be a yearlong” outbreak, she added.
“Symptoms include five days of fever, runny nose, cough, mouth lesions, and red eyes. Less frequently, children can develop pneumonia, encephalitis, seizures, and permanent brain damage. A rash starts on day 4 and covers the whole body for 4 to 5 days,” according to Olszyk.
For every 1,000 children who contract measles, one to three will die, often from pneumonia, according to the CDC. One in 1,000 will develop encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, which can lead to permanent hearing loss and intellectual disabilities. About 20% of unvaccinated patients will require hospitalization.
There is no treatment for measles. The only prevention is the vaccination. According to the CDC, children must receive two doses of the MMR vaccine to achieve about 97% protection from the virus. The first dose, which provides about 92% protection, should be given to babies between 12 and 15 months old. The second dose should be administered when the child is four to six years old. Because of the outbreak, however, babies as young as six months who live in infected areas may receive the first dose early to give them some protection during an outbreak.
While there is no treatment for measles, this has not stopped the Trump administration and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, from promoting “treatments” such as digesting high doses of vitamin A or cod liver oil, instead of promoting vaccines, the only intervention capable of stopping the spread and protecting children too young to be vaccinated.
When asked about the outbreak at a White House Cabinet meeting, Kennedy said it was “not unusual.” This is false. Measles outbreaks in the United States are very unusual today. Outbreaks today are directly related to people like Kennedy, who have a history of discouraging people from vaccinating their children. Kennedy, who has no medical training, has said that getting the vaccine was as dangerous as getting the measles. Numerous experts responded that Kennedy was wrong, again. Getting measles is far more dangerous, and avoiding measles with a vaccine could save a child’s life or avoid long-term disabilities.
After the Cabinet meeting, Kennedy took a hiking vacation in Coachella Valley, California, where he continued to make false statements about vaccines and measles. Instead of encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated to stop the spread, he incorrectly said that measles has long-term health benefits and improves a child’s immune system. Medical experts, however, reported that measles weakens the immune system for years, making children more susceptible to other illnesses.
Instead of rallying the troops at HHS, he offered buyouts to 80,000 HHS employees if they resigned. Clearly, neither Trump nor Kennedy is taking this outbreak seriously.
The HHS spokesman and Trump appointee Thomas Corry resigned to protest Kennedy’s lackadaisical response to the outbreak. In interviews with former HHS officials from the first Trump administration, Politico reported that they strongly disagreed with Kennedy’s assessment of the situation and believed he was “checked out.”
Decisions by Republican politicians, putting politics above science and the general welfare of their state’s children, are a significant factor in this outbreak. A recent decision by health department officials in Louisiana makes my point.
In February, just as the Texas measles outbreak was identified, the Louisiana Health Department announced that it would stop promoting mass vaccination clinics and promotional efforts to encourage citizens to vaccinate. Writing for The New York Times, Tim Balk reported, “Louisiana’s top health official said in an internal memo to the state’s Health Department … that it would no longer use media campaigns or health fairs to promote vaccination against preventable illnesses.”
Louisiana’s surgeon general, Dr. Ralph Abraham, was responsible for this decision. He said he would stop “partnerships” with local health departments to provide vaccines to Louisiana citizens. While he took an oath as a doctor to do no harm, his withdrawal of vaccination assistance across the state will harm many of the million children who live in Louisiana.
Fortunately, the New Orleans Health Department, run by Democrats, will try to pick up the slack. The department released a statement stating, “We will continue to strongly promote childhood and seasonal vaccination and expand our efforts locally to fill any gaps left by the state’s direction.” New Orleans operates independently from the Louisiana Department of Health.
The amazing thing about Abraham’s announcement is that it was made the same week that Texas, their neighbor, was dealing with the measles outbreak related to the high number of unvaccinated children. As Abraham had to know at the time, the virus could quickly spread to Louisiana. Instead of running from vaccines, Abraham should have declared an emergency and done everything possible to get young children in Louisiana vaccinated as soon as possible.
While many Republican states will no longer offer public vaccinations, officials in Texas are now hosting public testing sites to determine where the virus is spreading. Hosting public vaccination sites would have been less trouble, less expensive and less painful for their children. Testing isn’t going to stop the virus.
Once again, the Trump administration is demonstrating a lack of urgency and incompetence regarding a public health emergency. It reminds me of their response to COVID-19 during Trump’s first term. “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear,” President Trump said on Feb. 27, 2020. Of course, it didn’t “disappear.” When Trump left office, over 24 million Americans were infected with COVID-19, and 402,269 Americans died during his four-year term, according to Johns Hopkins University.
It doesn’t appear that Trump has learned anything from the COVID-19 experience, and he doesn’t seem to care.
Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.
