The Texas-New Mexico-Oklahoma #measles outbreak could be a long one, local public health official warns. https://www.statnews.com/2025/03/18/measles-outbreak-could-last-a-year-texas-public-health-official-predicts/
A Short History of Measles and Vaccine Hesitancy
The graphs accompanying this article show that vaccination rates have risen over the last ten years in California, while declining in most of the rest of the country. The California increase in vax rates correlates with the aftermath of the 2014 Disneyland Measles Outbreak, which caused over 300 measles infections, mostly in Southern California and Canada, and overwhelmingly among unvaccinated individuals. It also sparked debate on vaccine hesitancy and led to California Senate Bill 277, which revoked the “personal belief” exemption, thus tightening the rules around vaccination requirements for K12 public school children by eliminating nonmedical exemptions.
SB 277 was co-authored by Senators Richard Pan (who was a physician) and Ben Allen. At the time, some California public schools had vaccination rates below 60%, even though a 95% rate is required for Community Immunity (herd immunity) for many diseases, including measles. Though the bill was supported by the California Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the PTA and California Children’s Hospital Association, there was loud and aggressive opposition by a tiny number of anti-vax activists, who tried (but failed) to get Pan recalled. They also called him a Nazi and made death threats against both him and Allen.
It takes a serious level of fear and anger to want to kill someone. So, what was driving this fear and anger?
A major factor is the false belief that vaccines cause autism. For new parents, autism can be a terrifying diagnosis. So, if there is any evidence that something specifically is causing autism, it makes perfect sense to try and avoid it. And if parents believed that the state was imposing an autism-causing drug on their children, it is not hard to see why they’d associate the law-makers with Nazis, and the drug with Zyklon B. To a rational, educated person who understands that the risks associated with vaccines are actually miniscule compared with the risks associated with the diseases they protect against, this kind of thinking by anti-vaxxers probably seems absurd, or ignorant. However, it’s not just an issue of education versus ignorance. Consider that Marin County, California, one of the nation’s most affluent and highly educated communities, once had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state.
One reason people have associated vaccines with autism stems from the common mistake of conflating causation with correlation. Autism is often diagnosed in children around the age of two, which is around the same age that many childhood vaccinations are given. Many parents of autistic children got their diagnoses within a year or so of their children’s vaccinations and they made the assumption that the two were connected when, in actuality, it was a coincidence. Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have confirmed that there is no increased risk of autism due to vaccinations.
The belief that vaccines caused autism really took off in the late 1990s. After British physician Andrew Wakefield published his fraudulent 1998 Lancet article, falsely showing a link between the MMR (Measle, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine and autism, there was a sharp decline in vaccination uptake. However, other researchers were unable to replicate Wakefield’s results (something that should be easy to do if the study was valid). Additionally, journalist Brian Deer discovered that Wakefield had a significant conflict of interest because he stood to earn up to $43 million per year selling test kits. And the British General Medical Council (GMC) later found that Wakefield was guilty of mistreating developmentally delayed children.
When Wakefield’s study was discovered to be fraudulent, Lancet retracted his paper and the GMC revoked his medical license. In 2004, he moved to the U.S., where he continued to push his bogus anti-vaccination claims, directing the pseudoscience propaganda film “Vaxed.” Robert De Niro, whose son is on the autism spectrum, removed the film from the Tribeca Film Festival. However, proponents of the vaccines-cause-autism hypothesis, including U.S. Health & Human Services boss Robert F. Kennedy Jr., continue to push this lie. For a while, they tried to blame thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that was used in vaccines since the 1930s. However, in 1999, thimerosal was pulled from vaccines as a precautionary measure. And, guess what: autism rates continued to climb anyway.
Today’s measles outbreak is currently close to 300 cases, primarily in Texas and New Mexico, but with cases spreading to Oklahoma and other states. And nearly every one of those cases is in an unvaccinated patient. There have also been two deaths, one in Texas and one in New Mexico. However, in the U.S., measles mortality is general around 1-2 deaths per 1,000 cases. Because measles, unlike Covid and Influenza, does not mutate rapidly, this is unlikely due to the evolution of a more virulent strain. Rather, the nearly 300 documented cases today are likely a gross undercount. The actual number may be closer to 500 or even 1,000. And we may not even be at the peak yet, particularly considering how low the vaccination rates currently are.
Back in 2015, when the California’s vaccination rates were lower, and its legislature was considering SB 277, one of the public faces of the debate was a 6-year-old Marin County boy with leukemia, named Rhett Krawitt. His parents argued that it was not safe for him to attend school with unvaccinated children, since he was immune-compromised and at increased risk of contracting a deadly disease from them. At the time, 20% of Marin’s students had opted out of the required vaccinations. Rhett, himself, spoke to the school board, as well as the state legislature, contributing to Marin County’s shift from being one of the lowest vaccinated counties in California, to one of the highest.
“Now what we’re seeing is a full-on assault on our state’s immunization program. Activists felt like they could take advantage of the [COVID-19 pandemic] and exploit it and start going after laws that have been on the books for decades.” https://www.texasobserver.org/measles-outbreak-anti-vax-legislation/
Houston has a new measles case. Travel case (infant) not connected to the outbreak in Texas.
The Houston Health Department confirms travel-associated measles case in infant
March 16, 2025
HOUSTON - The Houston Health Department (HHD) has confirmed the city’s third measles case of 2025. The case involves an unvaccinated infant who was exposed to measles during international travel. The infant was hospitalized and has since been discharged and is recovering at home.
This case is not connected to the measles outbreak in West Texas. This case is not related to the two earlier cases of measles reported in Houston in January 2025.
As well, the world should stop arrivals or put in #quarantine anyone from or travelling through the #US due to lack of medical response to #contagious #diseases. #measles #vaccinations #USPol #auspol #RFK
Hey #GenX I'm a bit worried that a lot of you aren't clear about #Measles vs #Rubella
And it's still bloody confusing to me because another name for measles is apparently Rubeola and when I searched "Measles" just now I saw that and I thought there was just confusion on someone's part about how to spell a weird latin disease name.
But anyways, we all most of us got Rubella as kids, and the grownups called it Measles, or else German Measles, but that was Rubella. Little red rashies everywhere for a few days, no further ill effects. One of those "harmless childhood diseases" that antivax crew love to deathcult about.
Measles or "Red Measles" or Rubeola, on the other hand, that shit is bad. Real fuckin bad. And as I understand it, that's what is on the spread.
Rubella = German Measles = don't panic.
Measles = Rubeola = antivaxxers are participants in multiple homicides.
So my concern is, that a lot of you are brushing off the Measles outbreaks, because you think it's Rubella.
YIKES!
On Wednesday, a woman gave birth in a Lubbock, Texas, hospital in the middle of a deadly and fast-growing measles outbreak. Doctors didn’t realize until the young mother had been admitted and in labor that she was infected with the measles.
By that time, other new moms, newborn babies and their families at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock had unknowingly been exposed to the virus, considered one of the most contagious in the world.
Hospital staff are scrambling with damage control efforts — implementing emergency masking policies and giving babies as young as three days old injections of immunoglobulin, an antibody that helps their fragile immune system fight off infections. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/texas-measles-outbreak-hospital-newborn-babies-exposed-rcna196519
BC’s Measles Vaccination Rate Is Lower Than in Gaines County, Texas | The Tyee https://thetyee.ca/News/2025/03/14/BC-Measles-Vaccination-Rate/ “In Gaines County, Texas, where a #measles outbreak has killed one six-year-old and one adult, the measles vaccination rate among kindergarteners is just 82 per cent, according to reporting by The Atlantic.
That’s a higher measles vaccination rate than children have here in #BC. (1/2)
In 1 decade, Texas went from having high vaccination rates to low rates
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/experts-vaccines-texas-measles
There were more than 125,000 #measles cases in the WHO European region in 2024 - the highest number since 1997!
38 deaths have been reported so far, every single one of them preventable.
Worth remembering this also as we report on the measles outbreak in the US.
Measles exposure possible on flight into Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga
"Toronto Public Health announced on Wednesday that an individual with a confirmed case of measles was on board Air Canada Flight AC 002 on March 2. The flight landed at Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga and the person was in terminal 1 from about 4:50 p.m. to 7:40 p.m."
I wrote a guest article for Healthy Debate that looks at why we need mandatory masks in healthcare, why surgical masks aren’t enough, and how the mounting threats to public health are putting lives at risk.
If you’re a healthcare worker, mask up.
Show us you take your oath to “do no harm” seriously
https://healthydebate.ca/2025/03/topic/wear-mask-plea-health-care-workers/
@flexghost Dem's should have challenged Trump during Congressional speech. "Say Her Name" the name of the child killed by #measles in Texas.
Oh right. They won't say her name.
Making America Sicker and More Ignorant Again
The NIH just cut research grants on dozens of studies, many already in progress, on vaccine hesitancy and strategies to increase vaccine uptake.
Meanwhile, RFKJr's CDC is resurrecting the long disproven link began vaccines and autism and calling for new studies on this already scientifically resolved non issue.
And at the same time, RFKJr is telling people to take snake oil, I mean codfish oil, and antibiotics, to combat measles, though neither of which has any efficacy for that disease.
New measles exposure areas in Windsor-Essex County, Ontario, Canada.
WECHU: The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit asks anyone, particularly those who are unvaccinated, who visited the location(s) listed below on the identified date(s) to monitor themselves for symptoms of measles for 7 to 21 days from the date of exposure
Erie Shores Walk-In Clinic
33 Princess Street, Leamington
Thursday, March 6th: 12:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Main building entrance & Erie Shores Walk-In Clinic waiting room
Walmart Leamington
304 Erie Street South, Leamington
Friday, March 7th: 10:00 am – 3:30 pm
Main entrance
https://windsorite.ca/2025/03/possible-public-measles-exposure-notification-march-12th-2025/
Vermont DOH: Vermont Department of Health Confirms Case of Measles
3/11/2025
"WATERBURY, VT — The Vermont Department of Health has confirmed a case of measles in a school-aged child in Lamoille County. The child became sick after returning with their family from traveling internationally in recent days. The risk to the public is believed to be low, as the child has been isolated from most community settings while they have been contagious. Investigation is ongoing.
This is the first case of measles in Vermont in 2025, following two cases in 2024 and two cases in the decade prior, one in 2011 and one in 2018. This case is not related to the three ongoing domestic outbreaks of measles in the United States or to the current measles outbreak in Québec. "
“The goal is to cast vaccines into the shadows. That has deadly consequences.”
Legislators are bent on dismantling our vaccine safety net even as this deadly disease sees a frightening resurgence in our state. https://www.texasobserver.org/measles-outbreak-anti-vax-legislation/
I’m old enough to have had #measles back when it was part of a barrage of childhood illnesses that everyone got.
I damn near died.
Sixty-five years later, I still remember the pain. Skin felt like I was being flayed alive. Even the weight of my bedsheets hurt.
Making a kid suffer through that when you could so easily prevent it?
Child abuse, plain and simple.
I hope #RFK Jr gets rabies.
