Why is there an outbreak of measles in West Texas? Gaines County has one of the highest vaccine exemptions in the state as the following article details. After that is an informative article from the Wall Street Journal which reviews the science behind the vaccine for measles.
Texas measles outbreak rises to 48 cases. It’s the state’s worst in nearly 30 years
The ongoing measles outbreak in West Texas has doubled in size to 48 cases, mostly in children and teens, making it the state’s worst in nearly 30 years.
The cases have been concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community, Texas Department of State Health Services spokesperson Lara Anton said. Gaines County is highly rural, so many of the families send their children to small private schools or are homeschooled, Anton said.
“The church isn’t the reason that they’re not vaccinated,” Anton said. “It’s all personal choice and you can do whatever you want. It’s just that the community doesn’t go and get regular health care.”
Anton said the state is working with local health officials to increase screening and vaccination efforts. Health officials are also working to educate school officials on identifying measles symptoms and encouraging families to vaccinate their kids.
One case was reported in Lea County, New Mexico, where residents were alerted Tuesday to a measles case in an unvaccinated teenager. The New Mexico Department of Health said the teen had no recent travel or exposure to known cases from the Texas outbreak.
Texas Department of State Health Services data shows there were 49 cases of measles in Texas in 1996. In 2013, there were 27 cases reported after a person who traveled to Asia returned and interacted with a vaccine-hesitant community, the state reported.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, the U.S. saw some 3 million to 4 million cases per year. Now, it’s usually fewer than 200 in a normal year.
The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.
Vaccination against measles, a two-shot series, is required for most U.S. kindergarteners in order for them to enroll in public school.
Texas law allows children to get an exemption from school vaccines for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs. The percentage of kids with exemptions has risen over the last decade from 0.76% in 2014 to 2.32% last year, according to state data.
Gaines County has one of the highest rates in Texas of school-aged children who opt out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% of K-12 children in the 2023-24 school year. Health officials say that number is likely higher because it doesn’t include many children who are homeschooled and whose data would not be reported.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content
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RFK Jr. Wants to Rethink the Measles Vaccine. Here’s What the Science Shows.
Measles and mumps are viral diseases so rare that fewer than one in 40,000 Americans catch either of them in a given year. Getting rubella is less likely than getting struck by lightning.
But as recently as the 1960s, measles sickened half a million people in the U.S. annually and killed hundreds. Mumps was a leading cause of deafness in children and rubella sickened thousands of pregnant women, causing many to miscarry or to deliver infants with birth defects. Measles, mumps and rubella vaccines introduced in the 1960s slashed infection rates. All 50 states require children to receive a combined MMR vaccine before starting school.
“We’ve eliminated the memory of these diseases,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Most Americans think the benefits of the MMR vaccine in children outweigh their risks, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey. But one in three people expressed concerns about the vaccine’s side effects. President Trump has said childhood vaccines cause autism. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for health secretary, who is scheduled to appear at a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, has questioned the safety and efficacy of the MMR vaccine.
What does the scientific record on MMR shots really show?
Safety
The idea that vaccines cause autism leads back to a 1998 paper in the Lancet linking the MMR vaccine to the condition.
Celebrities including Kennedy and actress Jenny McCarthy embraced the theory. MMR vaccination rates fell.
But the study involved only 12 children, and its findings were bogus. Its lead author, Andrew Wakefield, a surgeon at the time, falsified data and withheld financial conflicts of interest, according to the U.K.’s General Medical Council. In 2010, Wakefield’s medical license was revoked, and the Lancet retracted the study.
Wakefield has denied wrongdoing. He didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Antivaccination advocates have published limited research that they say suggests vaccines could be linked to developmental delays. Public-health experts say the studies don’t meet rigorous scientific standards.
A report published online in January claimed to link vaccination and neurodevelopmental delays among children in Florida. The report, funded by the National Vaccine Information Center, an antivaccine group, wasn’t published in a scientific journal, didn’t undergo standard peer review, didn’t verify vaccination status of its participants and didn’t consider variables that could skew results, doctors who reviewed it said.
The center said the report acknowledged its limitations and raised serious questions about vaccines.
More than 20 large-scale studies involving hundreds of thousands of children in several countries have discredited any association between the MMR vaccine and autism. Additional large studies strongly suggest that no vaccine causes autism.
A 2015 study involving more than 95,000 U.S. children ages 2-5 compared autism rates in those who had received the MMR vaccine and those who hadn’t. Vaccination didn’t affect autism rates, including in children whose older siblings had autism.
The study authors used a statistical model that accounted for other variables such as demographic information to figure out whether vaccination affected the risk that a child would develop autism. There was statistically no difference in risk between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, they concluded.
Vaccines, like most medical interventions, aren’t free of potential harms. Doctors say the question is whether the benefits outweigh them.
Efficacy
Measles menaced America until 1963, when the first measles vaccine prompted a sharp decline in infections and deaths from the disease. It causes a telltale rash across the body and flulike symptoms. Measles was eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, federal officials said. The virus still kills more than 100,000 people globally every year.
The mumps vaccine was introduced in 1967, when some 150,000 cases of the disease were reported annually. In 2024, that number was about 350. Mumps can cause swelling of the jaw, brain, testicles and ovaries. The disease can also cause hearing loss and, in men, temporary sterility or decreased fertility.
Tens of thousands of people used to get rubella yearly in the U.S. The disease is considered eliminated in the U.S., but there are still a handful of imported cases every year.
Measles makes a comeback
As vaccination rates have fallen in recent years, measles outbreaks have risen.
There were at least 16 measles outbreaks in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases were in children who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown.
“We will have measles outbreaks again. We will have rubella outbreaks again,” said Dr. Gregory Poland, a vaccinologist.
Minnesota, Illinois and Oregon in 2024 were the states with the highest number of measles cases. Minnesota’s MMR vaccination rate among kindergartners was estimated at 87%, Illinois’s was about 92% and Oregon’s was around 91%, the CDC said. That is short of the 95% coverage health authorities encourage to prevent community transmission.
Write to Dominique Mosbergen at dominique.mosbergen@wsj.com and Kara Dapena at kara.dapena@wsj.com
