Plummeting immunization rates, outbreaks of once-vanquished childhood diseases, and the appointment of a vocal vaccine skeptic as health secretary have U.S. experts sounding the alarm about a looming public health crisis.
Since the start of the year, nearly 100 cases of measles have been reported in Texas and neighboring New Mexico, raising fears that the highly contagious and potentially serious illness is making a comeback.
"The measles is the canary in the coal mine," warned leading pediatrician and immunologist Paul Offit, highlighting the decline in vaccination rates since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amid growing distrust of health authorities and pharmaceutical companies, more parents are opting not to vaccinate their children.
The proportion of preschool-aged children vaccinated against measles -- which is mandatory -- has dropped nationally from 95 percent in 2019 to less than 93 percent in 2023. Some regions show even steeper declines, such as Idaho, where rates have fallen below 80 percent.
Experts warn that this trend could worsen under the leadership of newly appointed Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly questioned vaccine safety and promoted misinformation.
"It is a disaster waiting to happen, and it will happen," Offit told AFP.
In Louisiana, whooping cough has resulted in the deaths of two children, according to local media. As with measles, experts attribute the resurgence to vaccine exemptions.
"This is already happening. Our immunization rates are already low enough that vulnerable children are getting these diseases," said Jennifer Herricks, a scientist and board member of the nonprofit Louisiana Families for Vaccines, in an interview with AFP.
Across much of the country, parents can opt out of mandatory vaccinations for reasons beyond medical contraindications.
Many states allow exemptions on religious grounds, while others permit "philosophical" objections -- or both.
"In Texas, you can just, pretty much say, I object," explained Terri Burke of the Texas-based Immunization Partnership.
The recent measles cases have been reported in a Texas county with a large Mennonite population -- a conservative Christian sect.
The situation is reminiscent of the 2019 measles outbreak, which saw more than 1,200 cases, primarily among unvaccinated Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey.
While the reasons behind these exemptions vary -- ranging from religious beliefs and fear of side effects to distrust in health authorities or difficulties accessing health care -- there is an undeniable trend linked to a "pandemic backlash," said Richard Hughes, a health policy expert at George Washington University.
Mixed messaging on masking, frustration over lockdowns and COVID vaccine mandates -- some of which remained in place long after it was clear the shots didn't fully prevent transmission -- have eroded public trust, he said.
"We might have done better by just continuing to encourage people to be vaccinated than requiring it," Hughes added.
But any missteps were amplified by an overwhelming spread of misinformation, which thrived in the era of social media and podcasts.
These factors have turned vaccinations into a flashpoint in America's culture wars. Across the country, lawmakers are introducing bills aimed at either enshrining vaccine mandates at the local level, banning certain types of vaccines, or expanding exemptions.
The number of such bills has more than doubled compared to pre-COVID levels, said Herricks, who tracks the issue nationally.
Notable shifts include Montana's decision to halt vaccination statistics and Louisiana's cessation of vaccine promotion -- both signs of the growing marginalization of a practice that was once a cornerstone of public health policy.
According to Offit, Americans may soon face a harsh reality check.
Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, the disease sickened an estimated three to four million Americans annually and killed hundreds.
It was declared eliminated in the United States by 2000, thanks to widespread immunization.
"People don't realize how sick and dead that virus can make you," he said.
© 2025 AFP
11 Comments
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Jay
And the pharmaceutical conglomerates and their government lackeys have NO ONE to blame but themselves. They have spent the last 4 years gaslighting the public with their "safe and effective" propaganda, lying about how their rushed, liability-free shots would stop infection, transmission, and hospitalization, and now they're shocked people wouldn't be running for the hills at the mere mention of another jab?
And with Yale scientists suggesting a likely link between the shots and PVS (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.18.25322379v1) the very same "experts" who demanded blind obedience are suddenly concerned about falling vaccination rates! Maybe they should have thought about that before treating anyone who asked basic questions like a "conspiracy theorist."
Trust is earned, and they threw it away.
Wick's pencil
But they are realizing how sick and dead vaccines can make you, and they are learning alternative and safer ways to protect against viral infections.
fallaffel
Oh please do share these alternatives.
zones2surf
Well, when a non-vaccine is sold as a vaccine, there might be a problem....
virusrex
This does not make any sense, the vaccines have been proved safe and effective all around the world, the ones to blame are those that willingly lie for personal profit in order to mislead the public into an unjustified anxiety, as if somehow the US had some "special" kind of science that made true alternative facts that have been proved false globally.
Not even close, this is not only a preprint, it is severely flawed one that fails even the most basic tests of methodology which is why it has been completely rejected by the scientific community in general as a horrible excuse of a scientific study, when people are deemed "uninfected" while having very high antibodies against the N protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (something that only comes after infection) it becomes clear they are trying to misrepresent their data. In one figure this becomes even more obvious when they put some "uninfected" people with higher titers than those they qualify as infected.
This of course would be unthinkable from serious scientists, but then you find out that some of the authors include openly antivaxxers that profit from lying about vaccines (and did not report it in the COI) then it becomes clear why this kind of basic, obvious misrepresentations made it to the paper. Just another example of disinformation.
The global consensus is that this is completely false, there is no such "alternatives" and the measles outbreak that already produced fatal victims help reminding people why vaccines are globally considered such a huge success, parents of a child choose not to vaccinate him, he got measles and died, trying to hide this is an action as irresponsible.
Except that the "problem" is people without any actual knowledge about vaccines pretend their arbitrary definition makes well recognized vaccines something different. That is only a problem of trying to argue from an appeal to ignorance.
wallace
Vaccines have saved millions of lives from the most deadly diseases.
virusrex
Still a false accusation you repeat without ever showing any evidence, the only authors of the severely flawed report that openly lied for personal profit are well known antivaxxers that promoted falsehoods for personal profit. You don't even make any attempt to deny this because apparently you find it justifiable to lie as long as that makes people believe what you want them to believe, that is severely unethical and betrays an interest very different from public health.
It has always been and this applies to anybody that have an interest on public health, you keep making false accusations about links with companies but never offer any evidence even when it is obviously necessary. Yet when you bring a clear example of disinformation your excuse is once again that everybody in the world must be lying just because you said so.
Jay
Oh, so now suddenly there were other treatments? Funny, because for four years, people like you said that the only way to survive COVID was to roll up your sleeve for yet another booster!
Do you not remember when doctors who even mentioned alternative treatments were banned, censored, and labeled as quacks? When "cheap and effective" options were dismissed horse paste or something, all while Big Pharma raked in billions?
But now that the narrative is crumbling, you've actually always believed in multiple treatments? LOL!
virusrex
Nothing sudden about it, just because you are not even remotely familiar with the treatments that does not mean they were not in use from the very beginning of the pandemic. Things like dexamethasone are dirt cheap but were easily recognized as effective in the treatment of covid and nobody was criticized for saying so because the data was behind that claim, even when it could have been replaced with things a thousand times more costly.
Yet another false accusation, the kind you use when you run out of arguments so you have to make up things I have never said, easy to prove since you never put any link where this was supposedly said.
Again, not alternative treatments but worthless treatments that put patients at a higher risks, once it was clear HCQ and ivermectin did nothing good for the patients only seriously irresponsible doctors insisted on using them, which caused many unnecessary deaths, those doctors should be prosecuted because they acted against the well being of the patients only for personal profit.
Nothing is crumbling, HCQ and ivermectin are still worthless, doctors treated patients from the very beginning with many different treatments, including some that are terribly cheap, something impossible according to the conspiracy you keep claiming is in place.
No, the opposite, your source is a very clear example of people that are willingly lying for profit, meanwhile your accusations are still completely free of any evidence, people are expected to believe just because you say so, even when you brought a source that was easy to prove false.
Jimizo
I envisage a future where a university offering science degrees will just show podcasts such as Joe Rogan, Jordan Henderson and Louder with Crowder. Sod all that book and lab stuff - that’s for skinny fat soyboys who probably drive EVs.
Could work. Liberty University in the US makes money teaching ‘science’ to religious crackpots.
I'veSeenFootage
But wouldn't they have made even more BILLIONS off of loads of different treatments for diseases, instead of vaccines that help eradicate them? I mean, if you think about it, it doesn't really make sense. Curing someone of COVID with expensive medicine and machines is way more profitable for pharmaceutical companies and hospitals than vaccines. So shy would they make vaccines?