The United States of Measles

Donald Trump & RFK Jr. help usher in a golden age for the deadly measles virus

Nearly four months into President Donald Trump’s second term, it’s the golden age all right. The golden age for the highly contagious measles virus. There are almost 950 known cases in the United States, most of them in Texas. Reuters reports that is an alarming “180% increase over the 285 cases reported in all of 2024 - the second highest annual U.S. case count in 25 years.” Three people have died, two of them children. These are the first measles deaths in the U.S. in over a decade. All three of the victims were unvaccinated.

Here in Illinois, where I live, we now have at least four confirmed measles cases, including one person who traveled through O’Hare Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world. There are also now four cases in North Dakota, the first in that state since 2011. That brings the number of states with measles to 30 since the first cases were reported just over four months ago.

The measles epidemic shows no sign of slowing, thanks in part to a disastrous response by the Trump administration, especially Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. While Trump and Elon Musk are busy destroying the country’s health care infrastructure with ill-conceived DOGE cuts, Kennedy’s response to the crisis has been to double down on his dangerous anti-vaccine stance. Welcome to the United States of Measles.

Precipice of Disaster

Measles is “one of the most infectious viruses known to mankind,” according to the World Health Organization. Through the years, millions have been killed worldwide. In America, hundreds of thousands got the measles and hundreds died each year until a vaccine was introduced in 1963. The overwhelmingly successful MMR vaccine eliminated measles in the United States in 2000. But if vaccination rates among young children continue to decline, measles could again be everywhere. The outlook is increasingly grim.

Stanford epidemiology professor Mathew Kiang said, “With measles, we found that we’re already on the precipice of disaster.” In Kiang’s worrisome study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the data shows that declining vaccination rates threaten to bring the disease roaring back even stronger with “an estimated 851,300 cases over 25 years, leading to 170,200 hospitalizations and 2,550 deaths.”

Kiang added, “It’s worth emphasizing that there really shouldn’t be any cases at this point, because these diseases are preventable. Anything above zero is tragic. When you’re talking about potentially thousands or millions, that’s unfathomable.”

Kennedy’s response

Kennedy, the nation’s top health official and longtime vaccine skeptic, is responding to the growing measles threat by undermining vaccines and promoting bogus cures and “quack doctors.” Kennedy’s been especially busy lately as he:

• Promoted unproven measles treatments, including Vitamin A and antibiotics;

• Updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention treatment guidance to include those treatments;

• Encouraged parents to “do their own research”—aka questionable internet searches;

• Changed long-standing vaccine testing policy;

• Falsely claimed vaccines aren’t safety tested—they are;

• Repeated disinformation about MMR vaccine ingredients; and

• Argued measles is getting too much attention.

Together with Trump, Musk and DOGE, Kennedy is also busy slashing vaccine-related programs. The New York Times reported that “HHS has overseen mass firings across federal health agencies, including staff responsible for outbreak response and vaccine access; canceled or postponed meetings of independent vaccine advisory committees; and ended vaccine education campaigns.” NBC News reported that DOGE canceled $2 billion in funding for a vaccine program for children from families with low incomes.

In Texas, the epicenter of the current outbreak, “50 vaccination clinics have been closed” and public health workers have been laid off. The Austin American Statesman reported that “In Lubbock, where doctors are treating the patients who have needed to be hospitalized with measles, the city public health department was told to stop work it was doing to try to control the outbreak because the funding is no longer available.”

It gets worse. Kennedy recently launched an effort to reexamine long-debunked ties between vaccines and autism. Kennedy also might change the government’s childhood vaccine recommendations, including dropping the COVID19 inoculation. The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy says HHS canceled not one but two critical vaccine advisory meetings. The nation’s top vaccine regulator was forced out at the Food and Drug Administration after trying to block Kennedy from, among other things, corrupting a sensitive vaccine database. Now the Food and Drug Administration appears to be slow-walking vaccine approvals. On CNN, new FDA head Marty Makary refused to recommend parents vaccinate their children against measles.

Kennedy made phony promises of “radical transparency,” but he’s actually hiding health information from the public. A ProPublica investigation showed Kennedy’s CDC recently hid a measles forecast that included a call for increased vaccine awareness. Fortunately, the CDC website still contains credible information about measles, including this: “The best protection against measles is measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.” Another bonus is that the CDC site links to reliable state health agencies with up-to-date information on measles cases.

Going viral

There is little mention of vaccines or even the measles outbreak itself on the CDC’s or Kennedy’s X feeds. The CDC last posted about measles more than a month ago, and a month before warned about travel to Texas and New Mexico. As of May 1, I counted only four posts on Kennedy’s official account about measles. One included this: “Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me.” Another lauds two Texas doctors who claimed they “cured” measles patients using asthma inhalers and an antibiotic commonly used to treat bacterial infections like strep throat. That is dangerous. Even though Kennedy doesn’t seem to want to admit it, actual science has proved that there is no cure for measles, only prevention via the MMR vaccine.

Because Twitter is now the de facto U.S. government communications source, posts there can send a powerful signal about priorities. Kennedy’s priorities are clear. Helping keep the nation safe from a deadly disease is not among them. He has more posts about soda, food dye, and his autism/vaccines conspiracy theories than this deadly measles outbreak. But his favorite subject appears to be photos ops with other Trump administration figures. So far, there are at least 12 photo op posts compared to with the four posts on measles.

All of this is a stark contrast to 2019 when, during another measles outbreak, Trump’s then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar and other health agency officials did regular, fact-based public outreach. Azar promoted the vaccine, saying: “We cannot say this enough: Vaccines are a safe and highly effective public health tool that can prevent this disease and end the current outbreak. The measles vaccine is among the most-studied medical products we have and is given safely to millions of children and adults each year. I encourage all Americans to talk to your doctor about what vaccines are recommended to protect you, your family, and your community from measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Kennedy, meanwhile, has reserved most of his media interviews for Fox News, where he continues to share misinformation about the measles virus. Luckily, there is plenty of solid local and national news coverage of the virus with timely alerts about new outbreaks, fact-based vaccine explainers, fact checks on Kennedy’s “remedies” and details about the related DOGE cuts. Recommended information sources include KFF Health News, STAT News, Reuters, CBS News, and AP.

As measles spread, influenza is also becoming a serious problem. The CDC says 216 children have died so far this year, the most influenza-related deaths in 15 years. Bird flu is also already here and getting worse by the day. Whooping cough is on the rise, and there’s a risk that other once-contained diseases could follow, such as chickenpox, tetanus, diphtheria, and even polio. Massive cuts to staff and spending at our federal health care agencies and the failure to promote sound medical advice will not keep us safe from any of it.

Trump, Kennedy, and Musk are turning this into the United States of Measles.

Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.”

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