The United States is experiencing its worst measles outbreak in 35 years, with over 5,000 confirmed cases since January 2025 compared to just 4,485 total cases between 2000 and 2024. The crisis intensified this week when Pennsylvania reported two measles deaths in Lancaster County, though local officials are already disputing the cause of one death involving a newborn. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has responded with denial, suggesting the Pennsylvania deaths “may even have been altogether fabricated” by Governor Josh Shapiro. New measles cases have emerged across Ohio, California, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, and New York, signaling a rapidly spreading national emergency that threatens to erase decades of disease elimination progress.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine activism has directly contributed to this public health crisis. For over 20 years, he has promoted vaccine skepticism, including his 2021 claim that “the cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A” during a speech in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the current epicenter of the state’s outbreak. His documented involvement in undermining the MMR vaccine extends internationally: he traveled to Samoa to investigate the combined vaccine, and months later a measles epidemic there killed 83 people, primarily children. In August 2026, Kennedy stood alongside President Trump as he signed an executive order calling for separating the MMR vaccine into three individual shots, with Trump claiming the combined vaccine “could be a possibility they are quite lethal.”
Vaccination rates have declined dangerously since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Kindergarten MMR vaccination rates dropped from 95 percent in 2019 to 92.4 percent today, creating roughly 90,000 additional unvaccinated children annually. Measles requires vaccination rates above 95 percent to prevent outbreaks, and eighteen states now fall below 90 percent. Expanded vaccine exemptions have accelerated this decline, with twenty-four states reporting exemption rates of 5 percent or higher. A modeling analysis projects that a 1 percent annual decrease in vaccination rates could result in 17,000 cases, 4,085 hospitalizations, and 36 deaths annually by 2030, along with an estimated $1.5 billion in costs and the return of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a devastating neurological condition with mortality rates approaching 1 in 600 among infants.
Reversing this trajectory requires confronting vaccine refusal as a political problem, not merely a scientific or access issue. Public health officials face mounting pressure from misinformation campaigns while already working with chronically underfunded systems and low morale. Watch for whether communities implement multipronged campaigns addressing vaccine hesitancy directly, and whether political leadership begins actively countering anti-vaccine messaging rather than amplifying it.
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