In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa. Last year, he lied about it under oath.
Since Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.
Pennsylvania has surpassed 1,000 measles cases this year, state health officials said Monday, making it the largest state outbreak in more than three decades.
The U.S. is enduring its worst year for measles since 1991, with nearly 3,900 reported cases, according to the CDC. The nation has seen eight reported measles-associated deaths in the past two years — more than the combined total of reported deaths over the previous three decades.
...
It’s been decades since a U.S. state has seen an outbreak surpass 1,000 cases, stretching back to a multiyear outbreak in New York City in the early 1990s that infected more than 4,500 people.
The nation eliminated the domestic spread of measles in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, but those rates have fallen in recent years to below the 95% coverage needed to prevent outbreaks.
In November, international health officials will meet to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles-free status.
Joseph Goldstein at NYT:
Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a statewide health emergency in New York State on Monday as measles cases increased dangerously across rural counties where vaccination rates have lagged.
As of Saturday, 108 measles cases had been reported across the state this year, the most since 2019, when New York was the epicenter of a national outbreak. Most of the cases are in rural areas, concentrated in the Finger Lakes region.
Ms. Hochul’s declaration will relax rules about who can administer vaccines to make it easier for midwives, pharmacists and other health care workers to give shots to prevent measles.
“After reviewing the latest data on measles cases in New York State, I am declaring a state disaster emergency to strengthen our ongoing efforts to confront this disease,” the governor said. “No one should get seriously ill or die from a vaccine-preventable disease.”
