{"id":974071,"date":"2026-08-01T19:06:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T19:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/974071\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T19:06:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T19:06:32","slug":"as-measles-has-a-record-resurgence-doctors-relive-the-u-s-s-last-major-outbreak-we-were-pulling-one-dead-child-out-of-the-house-after-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/974071\/","title":{"rendered":"As measles has a record resurgence, doctors relive the U.S.\u2019s last major outbreak: \u2018We were pulling one dead child out of the house after another\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was 1989, George H.W. Bush was in the White House, Madonna was on the radio and the country was in the grips of its last major measles<\/a> outbreak – until today. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were scared to death to come to the city. I mean, schools canceled trips to the city. We were pulling one dead child out of the house after another,\u201d pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia who was working in the city as cases exploded, told The Independent. <\/p>\n

By the time the outbreak ended nearly three years later, there had been 55,467 cases and 166 deaths across the country, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> records show.<\/p>\n

It was the worst outbreak the country had seen since the measles vaccine, which also targeted preventable illnesses mumps and rubella<\/a>, was introduced in 1963. Public health officials blamed the crisis on low vaccine coverage<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Now – with more than 2,300 cases<\/a> of the potentially-deadly disease in the U.S. and numbers rising weekly – there are no such vaccine barriers. But different obstacles exist: beginning with the White House. <\/p>\n

\"CollegeCollege students stand in line for measles vaccinations at Georgia\u2019s Auburn University in April 1989 – the year of the last major measles outbreak in the US – until today (AP)<\/p>\n

A skeptical White House<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s public health agenda, spearheaded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has seen vaccine skeptics added to advisory panels<\/a> and conspiracy theories about vaccines spoken about inside the federal government.<\/p>\n

Trump himself has repeatedly claimed that young children are given 80 different vaccines. <\/p>\n

“They give \u2014 I mean, for a little baby to be injected with that much fluid?” Trump told reporters in September<\/a>. “Even beyond the actual ingredients, they have sometimes 80 different vaccines \u2026 It\u2019s like you\u2019re shooting up a horse.” <\/p>\n

The number of vaccinations before the age of 18 is typically between 30 to 50, doctors say<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The president has also recently pushed Kennedy – long known as a vaccine skeptic – to be more aggressive on cutting federal recommendations for annual child vaccines over the debunked ties to autism<\/a>, The Wall Street Journal<\/a> reported earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\"MeaslesMeasles is a nasty virus that can lead to life-threatening brain swelling in children who are unvaccinated. Distrust in vaccines has been at the heart of America\u2019s measles resurgence, with vaccine skepticism rising 15 percent since 2019 (CDC)\"PresidentPresident Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have both made misleading comments that are skeptical of vaccines for children, including related to debunked ties between vaccines and autism (Getty)<\/p>\n

Last year, Kennedy said he directed the CDC to abandon its longstanding position that vaccines do not cause autism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing about \u2018vaccines have been tested and there\u2019s been this determination made,\u2019 is just a lie,\u201d he told The New York Times<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n

White House spokesperson Kush Desai also previously told the The Independent<\/a> that people worried about \u201cskyrocketing autism rates have long been ignored if not mocked.\u201d <\/p>\n

He added that the administration is \u201ccommitted to leaving no stone unturned to finally address these concerns with Gold Standard Science.\u201d <\/p>\n

In vaccines we distrust<\/p>\n

Distrust in vaccines in the U.S. came long before Trump but has grown in recent years because of misinformation that circulated online during the Covid-19 pandemic and in podcasts and social media since then.<\/p>\n

That distrust has been at the heart of America\u2019s measles resurgence, with vaccine skepticism rising 15 percent since 2019, according to a study<\/a> from the University of Arkansas.<\/p>\n

About one in five parents are not confident childhood vaccines have been tested enough or that the annual vaccine schedule for kids is safe, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we have a skeptical, mistrustful, conspiratorial population goaded on by people like Bobby Kennedy Jr. And now we have a very different kind of problem \u2013 and a dangerous one,\u201d Dr. Irwin Redlener, co-founder of non-profit healthcare organization Children’s Health Fund with the musician Paul Simon, told The Independent.<\/p>\n

\"ThisThis map from the CDC shows measles cases across the U.S. so far this year. The states with the highest case levels are shown in darker blues and those with the lowest levels are shown in lighter blues (CDC)<\/p>\n

Since last year, there have been several large measles outbreaks affected by vaccine skepticism, including in a Mennonite community in West Texas and an evangelical Christian community in South Carolina. There were two child deaths reported in Texas.<\/p>\n

Measles appears as an angry red rash dotting all areas of the skin, with cases causing a high fever, pink eye and runny nose. Normal cases typically last for a week or two but some who are infected develop a progressive brain disorder that is often fatal.<\/p>\n

The virus spreads quickly through the air after an infected person coughs or sneezes – even if they are no longer in the room a couple of hours later.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the answer to stopping the spread is the same as it was 35 years ago: vaccines. <\/p>\n

\"EthanEthan Turner holds his 14-month-old son, Niko, while he gets the measles vaccine at a clinic in Lubbock, Texas, in March 2025. Increased vaccination helped to end the measles outbreak in Texas last August (Getty)\"MedicalMedical workers assess a patient with symptoms of the measles in a parking lot in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in January. Spartanburg was the site of one of the nation\u2019s biggest outbreaks since last year (The Washington Post\/Getty)<\/p>\n

A deadly cost<\/p>\n

During the last major outbreak, Philadelphia saw 1,400 cases, with about a third in middle-class Christians, accounting for six deaths in under a year, according to Offit.<\/p>\n

Religious exemptions to vaccines were legal in Pennsylvania, as remains the case across more than 40 states<\/a>, and these communities \u201cjust didn\u2019t believe in modern medicine,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you know, they believed in prayer. And if you prayed and your child died, then you hadn\u2019t gotten close enough to God,\u201d Offit said.<\/p>\n

Several months into the 1991 outbreak, Philadelphia doctors were issued an order from a judge to vaccinate children, regardless of the parents\u2019 wishes – something that hasn\u2019t been done since. The decision stopped cases in their tracks.<\/p>\n

In states with other outbreaks, free vaccine clinics at universities played a role in slowing the spread of measles at a time when the jab wasn\u2019t always without a cost. Georgia\u2019s Auburn University<\/a>, Illinois\u2019s University of Chicago<\/a> and Ohio\u2019s Kent State University<\/a> offered the shots free of charge. <\/p>\n

Cost was the primary hurdle for children in the U.S. not getting vaccinated during the 1989 outbreak, according to the CDC<\/a>. At the time shots cost over $30, a 1989 <\/strong>New York Times<\/a> article reported.<\/p>\n

Many low-income families also did not have access to primary care physicians who could give children vaccines, Redlener explained.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Back then it] was problems of access along with, \u2018Oh, is it really serious, anyway?\u2019\u201d he said. More than half<\/a> of children infected in that outbreak had not been vaccinated. <\/p>\n

It took a national effort to pull America out of the crisis. New guidelines for a second dose of the vaccine<\/a> were released in 1989, giving Americans an added layer of protection from the virus. Two doses of the vaccine are 97 percent effective against infection, whereas one dose is 93 percent effective<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 1993, President Bill Clinton\u2019s administration launched the federal Vaccines for Children initiative, providing vaccines for kids whose parents who may have not been able to afford them.<\/p>\n

By 2000, 76 percent<\/a> of children in the U.S. had the measles vaccine – which helped stop the continuous spread of the disease for more than a year and brought cases to a record low<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘I think people don’t remember measles’<\/p>\n

Now, more than 90 percent of children have had their measles shots. But coverage needed to limit spread among kindergarteners is lower than it should be and has been declining <\/a>since before the pandemic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So an illness that many doctors thought they had resigned to history has come roaring back and as a far murkier and complex problem to solve.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have a challenge that none of us have formally been trained for. What do we do with recalcitrant, anti-science ideologues who have bought into the conspiracies being sold by the likes of Bobby Kennedy Jr.?\u201d Redlener asked.<\/p>\n

\"IncomingIncoming kindergartener Jeremy Conner, 5, reacts to a measles shot in Santa Ana, California, in August 2002. Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000 (Getty)<\/p>\n

While Kennedy denied being anti-vaccine <\/a>during his confirmation hearings to become health secretary, he\u2019s also touted unconventional treatments for measles<\/a> and previously falsely claimed<\/a> that outbreaks were tied to the fact the vaccine didn\u2019t offer lifelong protection. The measles vaccines<\/a> offers lifelong protection, per the CDC.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as we have a federal government that\u2019s committed to promoting misinformation and conspiracy theories, it\u2019s going to be very difficult to fix anything,\u201d Redlener added.<\/p>\n

In response to today’s rising cases, HHS says Kennedy has been clear that vaccination is the most effective way to prevent infection and that the department has focused its response on supporting affected communities and strengthening local and state response.<\/p>\n

“Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS has mounted an aggressive outbreak response, providing more than $8.5 million to states and local partners, expanding technical assistance, and surging CDC personnel and resources to support containment efforts where needed most,\u201d Press Secretary Emily Hilliard told The Independent.<\/p>\n

Offit believes the measles outbreaks will continue in an era of medical freedom, and as people believe they have the right to make their own health decisions and stop caring about the health of their neighbors.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that people don\u2019t remember past outbreaks, he said, and some younger doctors working at his hospital had never seen a measles case before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that not only did we eliminate the disease, we eliminated the memory of the disease. I think people don\u2019t remember measles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":974072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[390942,1002,19949,157530,210,17287,1005,147731,376188,2036,128098,139565,3092,390943,8763,358,67,132,68,2969,2040],"class_list":["post-974071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-12-17-months","tag-color-image","tag-department-of-health","tag-gulf-coast-states","tag-health","tag-healthcare-and-medicine","tag-horizontal","tag-lubbock","tag-males","tag-measles","tag-medical-clinic","tag-mmr","tag-photography","tag-put-on","tag-son","tag-texas","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vaccination"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117021823493040986","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/974072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}