The headline hit screens on March 12: Officials warn of potential measles exposures at 2 Philly health facilities. Philadelphia is far from the worst affected area in the country, but there’s nothing more ominous than seeing your own neighborhood in national headlines. Since that Wednesday in March, we’ve seen another possible exposure in Philadelphia, cases across five Pennsylvania counties, and nearly 900 cases nationwide. This outbreak comes just 25 years after the CDC reached their goal of complete measles eradication in 2000.
Five years since the pandemic that defined our teenage experience, a new public health crisis, as contagious as covid and historically infamous, creeps in. I know my heart dropped when I saw the article, though I didn’t know exactly what to make of it. Pennsylvania public schools require the MMR vaccine and adults don’t generally require boosters, so what does this mean for us? If modern measles outbreaks of the past decade can tell us anything, it’s the most vulnerable group in our society that will be put at risk: children.
In early 2015, California declared an outbreak of measles after 110 of their citizens were diagnosed following a mass exposure at Disneyland. Though hailed as the “happiest place on Earth”, for 12 infants not yet eligible for vaccination and reliant on herd immunity, a trip to Disneyland was life-threatening. The disease spread across seven states, Canada, and Mexico, launching a national conversation about the importance of vaccination. Patient zero and 75 percent of those infected who were eligible for the vaccine were unvaccinated due to personal beliefs.
Brooklyn was shaken in 2019 when the NYC borough reached record high rates of measles cases. When a single unvaccinated child returned home after traveling abroad with the disease, measles quickly spread. It quickly surpassed the victims of the 2015 outbreak, in part due to an initial occurrence in a largely orthodox Jewish community with low rates of vaccinated children—78.4 percent as compared to 90.1 percent in other communities. By September of 2019, 1,249 Americans had been infected with measles and 89 percent of victims were unvaccinated.
In both these outbreaks, the outcry from the media and public officials was in staunch support of the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccination. A 2015 article by Forbes argued that the difference between the Disneyland outbreaks and previous measles crises, “a reason for hope, even celebration”, was the public anger and drive to defend vaccination mandates. On April 9, 2019, Mayor Bill De Blasio declared a public health crisis and announced that vaccination would be mandatory in parts of New York with a fine of $1000 for noncompliance. Still, we see today a pushback on vaccinations—including by public officials.
According to the CDC, one dose of the MMR vaccine is 93 percent effective against measles, and the recommended two doses is 97 percent. Most people don’t face any side effects, but soreness in the site of the shot, low-grade fevers, or temporary stiffness are acknowledged as possibilities. What is not a side-effect, despite decades long claims based on a quickly retracted and disproven study, is autism. Despite the great success of the MMR vaccine, we have a Secretary of Health who believes herd immunity gained by infection rather than prevention is the solution and routinely boasts false information regarding the highly studied disease. Before the vaccine was developed in 1963, nearly all Americans were infected with measles before the age of 15, with 400-500 fatal cases a year. Of those who survived, an estimated 48,000 were hospitalized and 1,000 suffered encephalitis, a swelling of the brain. Compare this to 2024, with 285 total cases of which 89 percent of those infected were unvaccinated.
The ongoing measles outbreak is not new or unique, but I believe our government’s response certainly shows a shift from cautious to careless — needlessly ignorant for the sake of appeasing the increasingly powerful anti-vax population. Vaccinations have been heavily politicized since the covid-19 pandemic, with a growing Libertarian sentiment that these mandates violate freedom and bodily autonomy in addition to the false links to autism. It’s a dangerous trend and even its supporters seem to know it, as vocal anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy has attempted to distance himself from the movement since taking office.
Many aspects of this administration can and have been described as “unprecedented,” to the point that the word has just about lost all meaning. Measle outbreaks have occurred and been overcome by turning towards science and reason, but that was before the post-covid boom of “pro-freedom” anti-vaxxers. If you can’t trust health professionals’ overwhelming support of the MMR vaccine, look at the past six decades of doctors whose thoughts they echo. We’ve seen outbreaks as recent as six years ago that were eradicated with a vaccine mandate and the public’s understanding that we have the power to keep our neighbors and their children safe.
If there’s anything that vaccinated, 20-something year olds can do at a time like this, it’s educating ourselves on past outbreaks to prevent another in our future. For our health, and our children, it’s time to restore the CDC’s eradication of the measles by supporting vaccines and supporting science.