Welcome back, measles

The other day I was casually listening to the news as background noise when I thought I heard the commentator say that the current measles outbreak now has reached a 35-year high in the United States.

Wha...?

Furthermore, this country is on the verge of losing its measles-free status after having virtually eliminated the viral disease in 2000, when it was officially declared eradicated in this country by the Centers for Disease Control.

But then something happened. Many people stopped getting measles vaccinations, even in the face of decades of evidence proving the shots work. 

Why?

Covid-19 made its appearance in 2019 and a vaccine was quickly developed (under Operation Warp Speed, the only initiative where I can find any reason to give convicted felon president Trump any positive credit) and introduced to the population.

The vaccine didn't prevent Covid – it still doesn't – but, consequently, all of those atrocious early Covid death rates began to diminish. Refrigerated trailer trucks no longer served as temporary morgues and hospitals were no longer running out of ventilators.

The Covid vaccine was enough to create something of a herd immunity to the point where now for many of us, getting Covid isn't much worse than the common cold.

But something else happened again. The Covid vaccine became politicized. Republicans said the vaccine was rushed and we didn't know what was in it. It would alter our genetic RNA. Do you know what you're putting in your body? It would kill us. And the fear seemed to spread. But why stop with Covid? What about flu shots? What about measles vaccines? What about all vaccines, period?

So what happened?

Measles, almost predictably, made a comeback. In 2025, there were an astonishing 2,289 confirmed cases of measles. As of July 23 of this year, there are an additional 2,318 confirmed cases across 45 states.

So, yeah, we're about to lose our status as a measles-free nation because some people don't believe the science or the evidence. But they seemingly will gobble up any conspiracy theory that aligns with the narrative they want to push.

I guess that explains why we have uniquely unqualified Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of the Health and Human Services Department. You know, the vaccine denier who swims in polluted creeks and dines on road kill.

Unbelievable. 

Footnote: Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association's (JAMA) Network Open released the findings of a landmark four-year study in France to answer the question: Are Covid-19 mRNA vaccines associated with the long-term risk of all-cause mortality?

The findings revealed that among the 22.7 million vaccinated people in France versus the 5.9 million unvaccinated individuals, vaccinated individuals had a 74 percent lower risk of death from severe Covid-19 and no increased risk of all-cause mortality in a median follow-up of 45 months.

A whole nation was involved in this study, which ultimately supported the safety of mRNA vaccines currently being used worldwide.

And, in another footnote from several years ago, researchers from Yale University published a study in JAMA Internal Medicine analyzing excess Covid deaths of registered voters in Ohio and Florida. The study found that registered Republicans had an excess death rate 15 percent higher than Democratic voters between March 2020 and December 2021.

In addition, after Covid vaccines were free to all adults in April 2021, the gap widened even more. Republicans had a 43 percent higher excess death rate than Democrats. Hit me with a feather.

C'mon, people. Covid. Measles. Flu. Whatever. Take your damn vaccine shots, both you and your children. The evidence is clearly smacking you right between the eyes.