Let’s be absolutely clear: measles is returning to America not by accident but by choice. The choice that kills babies.
We have already exceeded [the total for all 2024 Measles cases in America] with this one outbreak — and that’s not the only measles activity in the US: there are cases in 6 states: Texas, New Mexico, Alaska, New York, Rhode Island, and Georgia.
Note: the current numbers are likely an underestimate since the Trump administration has gutted disease surveillance and muzzled public health communications at the national level.
This is a direct consequence of dismantling public health infrastructure and allowing misinformation to dictate policy, while driving a platform directly hostile to women and children.
Before the measles vaccine of 1963, nearly everyone got infected by the most contagious viral disease known to humans. The reality of its effects remain very grim: measles hospitalized 1 in 4 children and killed 1 in every 500 infected in the US. That translated to hundreds of deaths annually and thousands of cases of physical harms causing lifelong disability. Measles also performs a catastrophic “reset” for all other diseases, removing any prior acquired immunity.
The most damning fact? Infants cannot receive the MMR vaccine until 12 months of age. Refusing the vaccine is basically stating that you want other people’s newborns to be at extreme risk of harm or death: permanent brain damage, pneumonia, and blindness.
Anyone claiming “but the fatality rate” still ignores the alarming brain damage and blindness from measles, let alone the fact that it “resets” all prior acquired immunity and thus causes a spike in deaths from all other diseases.
Babies rely entirely on herd immunity – on OTHER PEOPLE CHOOSING to be vaccinated – for everyone’s protection. When you are anti-vaccination, you’re anti-life, not just making a decision for yourself. You’re actively undermining the basic shield that normally protects the most vulnerable among us.
Now look at this statement from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
Mr. Kennedy acknowledged that vaccines “protect individual children from measles” and urged parents to talk with their doctors “to understand their options to get the MMR vaccine.”
“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” he added.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of H.H.S., did not send its first substantive notice about the outbreak until Thursday, almost a month after the first cases in Texas were reported.
This calculated doublespeak epitomizes our current crisis. Kennedy admits vaccines work while simultaneously framing them as optional lifestyle choices rather than essential public health measures.
This isn’t just dangerous – it’s a targeted attack on public safety and intellectually dishonest.
The hypocrisy is staggering. The same political forces restricting women’s reproductive autonomy – claiming to protect human life – now champion “personal choice” when it means allowing preventable diseases to spread unchecked and destroy reproduction nationally.
They’ve created a perverse framework where individual liberty means the freedom to endanger others, harming millions.
And where was the CDC while cases spread? Silent for a month. This institutional failure reflects a deeper rot – scientific agencies cowed into hesitation by political pressure, afraid to state simple truths for fear of backlash.
This is about whether we acknowledge any interdependence, the foundation of a society. Whether we accept that public health requires a collective action by definition. Whether we value evidence over ideology.
Wong et al. show that India’s measles immunization campaigns saved the lives of 41,000 to 56,000 children between 2010 and 2013.
The resurgence of measles is a moral failure by men who have weak constitution. It exposes a willingness to sacrifice the most vulnerable on the altar of misguided individualism that is too fearful and selfish to defend others from harm. And make no mistake: children pay the price for lack of care, a failure to stand firm on basic science.