Editorial: Commonsense best shot at avoiding measles epidemic

By The Herald Editorial Board

Catastrophes frequently arise from a collision of events and circumstances. The phrase is overused but describes that pileup of multiple occurrences that feed off each other and create a “perfect storm.”

That storm may be brewing now. A measles outbreak continues to grow in the United States at the same time as vaccine hesitancy and misinformation — itself an outgrowth of the cultural turmoil that arose during the covid pandemic — are increasing, vaccination rates are dipping, and a vaccine skeptic and conspiracy band leader, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been elevated to prominence.

Kennedy’s influence — including more than two decades of fear-mongering and misinformation around vaccines — would be harmful enough were he limited to his usual post as health and nutrition gadfly, but since his mandate from President Trump to “go wild on health,” Kennedy now has the reins of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which in the past could be counted on for careful leadership and trustworthy information.

As of mid-April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 800 cases of measles in 25 states, including Washington state, where five cases have been reported, including one in Snohomish County in March. That number stands against recent occurrences of the disease that in past years have numbered far lower, including 285 in 2024, 59 in 2023, 121 in 2022, 49 in 2021, and 13 in 2020.

Measles is an extremely contagious disease caused by a virus that typically produces a high fever, cough, runny nose, red and watery eyes and a rash that starts in the face and spreads to other parts of the body. The disease can result in hospitalization, brain swelling, pneumonia and death. Children under five and pregnant women are most at risk. This year, three deaths — two among children — have been reported in the U.S.

With that increase in infections in mind, a new tracking poll by KFF, a leading U.S. health information organization, finds mounting levels of belief in falsehoods around measles and vaccines. Among other findings, the KFF survey asked respondents about three common false claims around measles and the MMR — measles, mumps and rubella — vaccine, including:

That the MMR vaccine causes autism;

That vitamin A can treat measles infections; and

That the measles vaccine is more dangerous than being infected with measles.

To be belt-and-suspenders clear about this: All three statements above are false.

Yet, the KFF survey, taken earlier this month, found that about 6 in 10 adults had heard one or more of the above falsehoods and that more than half of those surveyed were uncertain about whether the statements were true or false, with a “malleable middle” responding that the statements were either “probably true” or “probably false.” As concerning is that partisan affiliation was a factor regarding the level of belief in the statements.

Republicans and independents were “at least twice as likely as Democrats to believe or lean towards believing each false claim about measles,” KFF reported.

More than a third of Republicans (35 percent) and a quarter of independents (26 percent) said that it was “definitely” or “probably” true that the MMR vaccine had been proven to cause autism, compared to 1 in 10 Democrats who responded so. Similar ratios were found among Republicans and independents and among Democrats regarding the other two statements.

That there is a “malleable middle,” as KFF put it — a group for whom accurate information and messaging could be most effective — makes Kennedy’s leadership and bully pulpit as HSS secretary all the more consequential. And dangerous.

Yet, statements — such as a post by Kennedy on X earlier this month that the MMR vaccine was “the most effective way to treat the spread of measles” — seemed aimed more toward inoculating himself against criticism that he continues to defy his pledge to the U.S. Senate during his confirmation that he was not “anti-vaccine.”

Kennedy has continued his falsehoods and doubt-mongering campaign against vaccines and in favor of untested and unproven treatments for measles and other diseases.

In March, Kennedy, in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity claimed there were “adverse events” from the MMR vaccine. “It causes deaths every year. It causes … all the illnesses that measles itself causes, encephalitis, blindness, et. cetera.”

One day after his statement in supposed support of the vaccine, Kennedy, in a CBS interview, said the death of an 8-year-old Texas girl was not caused by measles; “it was an bacteriological infection,” he said. The Texas State Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that both Texas children who have died during that state’s outbreak died of complications from measles and that neither child had been vaccinated. Doctors at the University Medical Center in Lubbock where the girl was treated said she died of “measles pulmonary failure,” according to the Associated Press.

Kennedy, again earlier this month, claimed doctors in Texas had “treated and healed 300 measles-stricken” children using a steroid and an antibiotic. Again, neither of the drugs Kennedy cited are effective treatments for measles, in particular the antibiotic, as antibiotics are effective only for bacterial — not viral — infections.

Accurate and consistent messaging about vaccines in general — and the MMR vaccine in particular — is important because widespread vaccination is key to preventing widespread outbreaks of disease. Because measles is easily contracted from coughs, sneezing, breathing and talking, populations need a community vaccination rate of 95 percent or better to assure “herd immunity.”

Nationwide, the MMR vaccination rate has dropped to 90.8 percent for one of two recommended doses, according to the CDC, down from 95 percent during the 2019-20 school year. For Snohomish County, the vaccination rate for kindergartners has fallen from 94.2 percent as of the 2019-20 school year to 92.4 percent during the 2023-24 school hear, according to Washington Department of Health figures.

A good dose of commonsense from adults — and especially among parents of young children — is now necessary in the face of events and circumstances — misinformation, hesitancy and disease, itself — that threaten to blow into a deadly storm.