Today, Explained - Make America Measles Again (MAMA)

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

The US eliminated measles, but now it’s making a comeback — and RFK Jr’s advice isn’t exactly helping. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members A sign offering measles testing outside of Seminole Hospital District in Seminole, Texas. AP Photo/Julio Cortez. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We've been here before. The United States officially beat measles in the year 2000. In the year 2000. But we've had plenty of outbreaks since then. In the year 2000. 2008, 140 cases. 2011, 220 cases. 2014, 667 cases.

The number of measles cases reported in the U.S. this year has reached a 20-year high. 2019, 1,274 cases. The highest number in 25 years. And now we've got an outbreak in 2025, but the difference this time, Robert Flouride Kennedy Jr. is in charge of Health and Human Services. And put the meat in my refrigerator and you can do that in the York State. You can get a bear tag for a roadkill bear. Make America Measles again, mama, on Today Explained. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home.

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prepared no matter what. Buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now atsung.com. Today Explained Sean Ramos from here with Mary Kakatos, who's a health and science reporter for ABC News. Mary, what is going on with the measles in the United States right now? So in Western Texas, we have around 300 cases confirmed. The majority of those cases are in unvaccinated people and those who have unknown vaccination status. Children and teenagers are making up the majority of cases.

So the majority of cases have actually been in those age 17 and under. We have more than 30 people who have been hospitalized and even one death in an unvaccinated school-aged child. But this is not limited to just Texas, though that is where this outbreak is happening? No, it is not limited to just Texas. Even though that is where the majority of cases are, there have been cases confirmed in nearby New Mexico.

Health officials believe there is a link, but that is still being investigated. And there have been cases confirmed in at least 12 other states. CDC data shows us. California, Vermont and Oklahoma reported new cases of the deadly virus. Reported in Washington state and Kentucky. Three confirmed cases now in Bergen County, New Jersey. At least four cases of measles so far in New York. It is just about anywhere that you could think north, south, east, west.

Okay, and this isn't the first time we've had a measles outbreak in even recent memory, but how big a deal is this one? Because it does sound bigger. So this is not the first outbreak in recent memory. We have had sporadic outbreaks occur over the last few years, but this outbreak has just been spreading quite rapidly because it is affecting a pocket of western Texas that has very low vaccination rates compared to the rest of the state and the rest of the country and a very high rate of exemptions, meaning that lots of parents have exempted their kids from receiving at least one vaccine that they need to attend

school. So this is making this outbreak much different than some other outbreaks that we've seen in recent years. So this outbreak first began in late January when the first case was confirmed. The majority of people who are living in that community are of the Mennonite community. So we have a high number of unvaccinated. They just don't believe in it. It's just not something that they choose to do. We believe very strongly in the authority of the parents in the home, that they need to and should have the freedom to guide and need their children.

There's nothing that says that this community can't get vaccinated, but unfortunately, anti-vax advocates have descended upon this community and have been spreading misinformation about how this vaccine is dangerous or that measles is okay for your child to get and it will create natural immunity against other diseases and is unfortunately putting many people at risk. The vaccine is incredibly safe and effective. There's two doses that are recommended. One dose is 93% effective, two doses are 97% effective.

And even if you do happen to get a breakthrough case, it is very, very mild. Measles is not a benign virus and it can cause really severe complications. Mary knows because she spoke to a doctor in her reporting. Measles is one of the most infective viruses known to man. And one person can infect 12 to 18 people. Contrast that with the seasonal flu,

and we're going through a pretty severe flu season, one person with the flu can infect up to three people. And so measles, one of the most infective viruses that we have, can infect almost four times as many people as the flu. And just in case any of these deer Mennonites in West Texas are listening right now, could you just remind people what could happen if your kid or if you yourself get the measles? Sure. So one in five people who get measles will be hospitalized. About one in 10 children can develop ear infections, which can lead to permanent hearing loss.

One in 20 children will develop pneumonia, which is the leading cause of death in children who get measles. And about one in 1,000 kids will develop encephalitis, which is swelling of the brain, which is of course very, very severe and could unfortunately to severe neurological complications and unfortunately even death.

Awful. Is there anyone in Texas, in West Texas, in this community reminding people of the grim realities of getting measles, especially among young people? Yeah, there have been several doctors across the state and in particularly Western Texas who have been getting the word out trying to remind parents about the dangers of measles, why it is such a dangerous disease, the benefits of vaccination. And they have been hosting vaccine clinics,

giving people the opportunity to either get their child vaccinated for the first time, have them catch up on doses that they missed, or even adults who never got vaccinated themselves to get that vaccine. And even Texas health officials and the CDC has also recommended this as well to try to get this outbreak under control, they are recommending a third early dose of the vaccine. So for kids between ages six months to 11 months to get a vaccine dose and then to get two regularly scheduled doses, the one that you would get at about a vaccine dose and then to get two regularly scheduled doses,

the one that you would get at about a year old and then the one that you would get from ages four to six. And that way it gives really, really young kids who have, of course, very sensitive immune systems a bit of a boost to protect them until they can get their regularly scheduled doses. Okay. So, so who's going to win this battle in West Texas? The vaccine skeptics or the vaccinated? Well, that remains to be seen. Hopefully, Texas health officials will be able to get this outbreak under control.

Unfortunately, measles does have a bit of an ability to spread like wildfire. These outbreaks can get out of control rather quickly unless they are detected and contained, but it will really remain to be seen what occurs over the next several weeks and months. And as you told us earlier, this has already spread, maybe not like wildfire, but certainly like mildfire at the very least. We got a dozen or so states. Who's doing something about that? So yeah, CDC health officials have helped on the ground. The majority of responses to measles outbreaks when they occur in states are actually up to local

and state health officials, and the CDC just helps with anything that they need. But CDC officials did actually go to Texas. They were on the ground helping out if states needed, but the majority is actually up to state and local health officials to control the spread of outbreaks and kind of request the help of the CDC if it's needed. Mary Kakatos, ABC, always be closing. We're heading to Bobby's world when we return on Today Explained comes from Quince. Believe it or not, the warm weather is finally coming.

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Get matched in minutes at nerdwallet.com. Today Explained. Kira Butler, national correspondent with Mother Jones. We got the measles in West Texas. We got the measles in a dozen or so other states. It sounds like a bit of a federal problem. What are we hearing at the federal level? So Health and Human Services Secretary,

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is of course, a well-known vaccine skeptic. Before he became the Health and Human Services Secretary, he ran a group called Children's Health Defense. You have started a group called the Children's Health Defense. And this is an anti-vaccine advocacy group. It's probably the biggest anti-vaccine advocacy group in the United States, if not in the world.

Right now, as I understand it, on their website, they are selling what's called onesies. These are little things, clothing for babies. One of them is titled, Unfaxed, Unafraid. Next one, and they're sold for 26 bucks a piece, by the way. Next one is no vax, no problem. So over the last few weeks, as the outbreak has grown, RFK Jr. has made some polarizing statements. On the one hand, he had an op-ed on Fox News

in which he said that vaccinations were an important tool. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears to be changing his tune on certain vaccines after years of casting doubt on their efficacy. Kennedy wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News on Sunday. Quote, vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity,

protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons. So this was really a departure for him. This is a statement in favor of vaccines. It's highly unusual for RFK Jr. Yeah. On the other hand, he's been repeating some misinformation. There are adverse events from the vaccine. It does cause deaths every year.

It causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause encephalitis and blindness, etc. He made claims that people who had adequate nutrition, who had good diets... It's almost impossible for you to be killed by an infectious disease in modern times because we have nutrition, because we have access to medicines. He said that measles could be treated with cod liver oil and steroids. They're getting very, very good results. They report from Budesonide, which is a steroid, it's a 30-year-old steroid, and larythromycin and also cod liver oil, which has high concentrations of vitamin A and vitamin D.

And he said that having a case of measles could actually prevent you from getting cancer later in life. These are statements that really have no basis in fact. None of them. That a good diet can help, that cod liver oil and steroids can help, and that measles can prevent cancer. He just made all of that up? Yeah.

I mean, I think if you asked him for research, he probably could point to a study. But when you really looked at the study, you would realize that it was a very small sample size or that it was done on a population that's really different from our population here in the United States or that he was cherry picking, misinterpreting the results. And is he like invested in cod liver oil or something? Why is he hawking that in particular? So the cod liver oil thing is interesting because cod liver oil, I think the idea is

that it has vitamin A. And vitamin A in very high doses actually is part of the measles treatment protocol. So for folks who have severe cases of measles, high doses of vitamin A are recommended because measles depletes the body of its vitamin A stores. Got it. So it's a treatment, but it's not preventative. None of this is preventative. There's absolutely no research that any of this could prevent measles. Okay, so a bit of a mixed bag from RFK. On one hand, he's admitting that vaccines can be helpful, showing a little personal growth there, but also doing the vintage routine of,

here's a bunch of natural homeopathic style solutions that actually are disinformation. Yeah, that's right. And you know, what he didn't say is what I think the rest of the public health community probably wished he said, which is the only way to prevent serious complications from measles is to not get it in the first place. And the way to do that is to get vaccinated. Why isn't he saying that? Seems so easy. It does, but this is it's not surprising for him, right? Because he he was at the helm of this kind of premier anti-vaccine advocacy group, and he is a true believer. The most kind of famous claim is that they cause autism.

This link between MMR vaccines and autism has been debunked over and over and over again. Nevertheless, the CDC in recent weeks has announced that they will go back and study that link again. And that, you know, presumably is at the behest of RFK Jr. Not long ago, and you can't even believe these numbers, one in 10,000 children had autism, one in 10,000, and now it's one in 36.

There's something wrong, one in 36. Think of that. So we're going to find out what it is is and there's nobody better than Bobby and all of the people that are working with you. You have the best to figure out what is going on. But this is a guy who has really devoted the last, you know, decade plus of his career to advancing the disproven theory that vaccines are broadly harmful. What he said is that the vaccine is a personal choice.

People ought to be able to make that choice for themselves. And he's got a lot of allies on that front, including people in this community who believe that these vaccines are a personal choice, if not straight up harmful. Yes, that's correct. Some members of the Mennonite community choose not to vaccinate. Others do vaccinate. It's kind of a personal choice within that community. But it's similar to some other outbreaks of measles that we've seen, most notably in the Orthodox Jewish community in New York. This is another kind of insular, relatively siloed community. And these communities can be especially vulnerable to misinformation, disinformation that's promoted

by anti-vaccine advocacy groups. Now that these communities kind of have an ally at the literal top of the Health and Human Services, do we know if anti-vax or vaccine skepticism is increasing in the United States at this point, or is it still too early to tell? We have pretty robust polling data that shows that since COVID anti-vaccine beliefs have increased. And we also have the beginnings of what looks like, frankly, a really scary downward trend

in vaccination rates just over the last few years since the pandemic, vaccination rates of, not of COVID vaccines, but of routine childhood vaccinations like the one that prevents measles have been declining. We should also note that Children's Health Defense has been working on the ground in West Texas near the heart of the outbreak. They set up an online fundraiser in coordination with a Mennonite historian and activist down there.

And the online fundraiser was to raise money to distribute these unproven treatments, that's cod liver oil, vitamin C, and Budesonide, the steroid, to families that are affected by the measles outbreak. And the person who is distributing these is Dr. Ben Edwards of a clinic called Veritas Wellness. It's kind of a holistic clinic, and it's in Lubbock, Texas. Everyone used to get measles. The body is designed to kill measles.

Vitamin A and vitamin C studies have been published showing it improves the outcomes in measles. We don't need to be fearful of measles. We need to be informed. So what you have is folks from Children's Health Defense, RFK Jr.'s group that he used to run, the anti-vaccine group, working with this holistic clinic to distribute these unproven remedies to families down there. Children's Health Defense actually sent two staffers

down to the heart of the outbreak, and they sat down with the parents of the child who died and did a video interview that Children's Health Defense then aired on their site. How many children do you have? We have four now. Four children. And all of the children got measles, correct? Yes.

So who got measles first? Kaylee, the one that passed away. And how old is she? She's six. And six? It's a really harrowing interview. And in the interview, you know, the parents say exactly what happened. You know, the kid got really sick, went to the hospital and eventually passed away. And then the parents say if they had the choice to make again, they still would not vaccinate

their kids. Wow. Do you still feel the same way about the MMR vaccine versus measles and the proper treatment with Dr. Ben Edwards. Yes, absolutely. We would absolutely not take the MMR. Like, the measles wasn't that bad. They got over it pretty quickly and Dr. Edwards was there for us. It was amazing. It was great. And the reason for that is that they said that their other four children had mild cases.

And they attributed that to the fact that their kids got treatments from this holistic clinic, the cod liver oil, vitamin C, inhaled steroids. And so your other children that got measles, how did they do? Very good. And yeah, Dr. Ben came helping us and we gave them treatments or like yeah some medicine and they had a really good quick recovery like when their measles started to go away they got better.

Really good. But if you look at the statistics that's sort of what you would expect whether or not they received treatment. You know, measles can be really serious, but the likelihood that all of their other kids would have pulled through okay, no matter what, is pretty high. This measles situation in West Texas with this Manna Nite community feels like an early test of RFK's leadership. This outsider now being not only on the inside, but literally in charge. What does it tell us about what his objectives are and what his leadership might look like

as we approach other epidemics and who knows, maybe a pandemic. Right. Well, unfortunately, the measles response is not the only example of leadership in an outbreak situation that we have so far. We also have bird flu. And he has suggested on bird flu that a way to deal with it would be to just let it run through the flocks. Just let it kind of let it go and burn itself out. You should let the disease go through them and identify the birds that survive, which are the birds that probably have a genetic inclination for immunity. And those should be the birds that we breed like the wild population.

You know, this was a strategy that was also promoted during COVID by folks who were against mask mandates, you know, against businesses being closed and things like that. They wanted to just sort of let the virus loose and have it infect whoever it would. There are sort of two ways to think about why it's important what RFK Jr. thinks. There's his official capacity as the Health and Human Services Secretary, and in that role, you know, he can make policies, he can influence what the CDC does, he, you know, may even be able to influence what the state-level response is. But there's something that I think is arguably even more important, which is his opinions as somebody who is now seen as a public health authority.

This is a guy who comes from the anti-vaccine advocacy world, who's now being given a platform, would be to put it mildly. This Maha, Make America Healthy Again movement is ascendant. His views have resonated with a whole lot of people. It's arguable that his endorsement of Trump helped sway the election in Trump's favor. So this is a guy whose opinions, I would say, are taken very seriously by a lot of Americans. Kira Butler, motherjones.com. Thank you, mother. Abhishek Artzi produced today's show. Amina Alsadi edited.

Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd mixed. Laura Bullard checked the facts, this is Today Explained. you