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One U.S. measles death from 2000 to 2024; three so far this year

• June 18, 2025
• Ed Gresser

FACT: One U.S. measles death from 2000 to 2024; three so far this year.

THE NUMBERS: Measles cases in the United States –

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Measles is an exceptionally “transmissible” disease — one infected person will typically pass it to 12-18 more — and survivors often suffer long-term immune system damage and a heightened risk of early dementia. In the 1950s, American health statistics typically showed about half a million cases and 500 deaths a year. The 1964 introduction of measles vaccines produced by Merck and Pfizer cut this by 90% — to 47,351 — by 1970, and to an average below 200 per year since 2000.  That can make people complacent — and then near-vanished diseases can return.  This year’s measles epidemic, centered in a low-vaccination Texas county, has already hospitalized 112 people and killed three. As long-time anti-vaccination crank Robert F. Kennedy Jr. purges immunization experts at the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Trump administration asks Congress to cancel U.S. contributions to GAVI (the international consortium providing 70 million no-cost vaccinations in low-income countries annually), some background on vaccines, malgovernance, and the possible future:

Vaccines are classes of medicine offering advance protection from 25 contagious diseases — smallpox, typhoid, hepatitis A and hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria, polio, measles, rabies, cholera, and encephalitis — borne by viruses or bacteria. The mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 is the most recent.  Vaccines come into use in the United States after a scientific evaluation, formal government approval, and finally recommendations for use by medical professionals. Both here and worldwide, they have made life safer, longer, and better. For example:

Poliomyelitis: In the 1940s and 1950s, before the introduction of the Salk vaccine, America’s annual polio counts often topped 57,000 cases and 3,000 deaths. Since 1993, we have had one case, an unvaccinated man returning from abroad. Overseas, though some “wild” strains remain endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, universal vaccination programs run by the World Health Organization, USAID, the CDC, charities, and national health ministries have cut case levels by 99.99%. The numbers:

2024             96 polio cases
2020               6 polio cases
2010           650 polio cases
2000        3,500 polio cases
1988    350,000 polio cases

Neo-natal tetanus data are similar: U.S. case rates have dropped from about 500 a year in the 1950s to 30 or so since 2000. Abroad, campaigns to vaccinate pregnant women and guarantee antiseptic standards in poor-country maternity clinics have cut deaths by about 99%, from nearly a million to fewer than 10,000 annually.

2021        7,719 tetanus deaths
2018      25,000 tetanus deaths
2000    309,000 tetanus deaths
1988    787,000 tetanus deaths

To place these specific cases in wider perspective, worldwide vaccination campaigns such as those run by GAVI – which spends a modest $1.7 billion a year, with America providing $300 million of it, to vaccinate 70 million children in 59 developing countries — have joined with the invention of new treatments and improving primary care to cut world under-five mortality rates by half since 2000 and nearly three-quarters in a generation.

World Health Organization for 1990-2023; World Bank World Development Indicators for 1980.

In sum, vaccine work — by scientists in government and private-sector labs, by businesses inventing and producing medicines, by charities and international organizations, by nurses and doctors, and by clinics and hospitals — has vastly reduced disease case counts, saved many lives, and given young children better chances in life. The achievement may have been so impressive, in fact, as to encourage a dangerous complacency.

This year’s measles outbreak is a vivid example.  The Centers for Disease Control notes that since 2020, America’s rate of “MMR” vaccination (the “measles, mumps, and rubella” combined shot) has fallen from 93.9% to 91.3% — that is, below the level thought necessary for the “herd immunity” which helps protect immune-suppressed people. Gaines County in Texas, the center of this year’s measles outbreak, has an especially low 83.7% rate. CDC’s count shows that within a few months, it has already infected 1197 people (including 347 children under 5, and 446 older children and teenagers), and will likely be the largest outbreak in three decades. The three people who died of it were all unvaccinated.

After decades of safety, then, Americans may be unwisely discounting disease risk and giving cranks and self-taught “contrarians” audiences they don’t deserve. The same may be true internationally. Worldwide measles deaths, having dropped by 92% from 1980 to 2020, have recently risen as global vaccination rates have slipped from 86% of children in 2020 to 83% in 2023.

Which brings us back to the Trump administration, this month’s ominous events at HHS, and Congress’ debate over health-aid “rescissions” this week.

Mr. Kennedy’s tragi-comic launch event — a “report” on children’s health apparently compiled by an AI program, stocked with invented quotes and cites to non-existent studies — has been followed by steadily escalating attempts to erode vaccination policy at home. Since May, Mr. Kennedy has canceled support for the development of second-generation mRNA vaccines and bypassed CDC professionals to remove scientific recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination updates; and, two weeks ago, fired the 17 members of the CDC’s voluntary expert advisory group, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a few weeks before their regular June meeting. The extraordinary op-ed (subs. req.) he used to announce this justifies the decision with (a) fact-free innuendo about “conflicts of interest” among the current ACIP members, without any specific claim to back it up, and (b) an open admission that the administration sees ACIP positions less as sources of impartial analysis than as patronage. (“[W]ithout removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028”.) The American Medical Association’s comment:

“For generations, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has been a trusted national source of science-and data-driven advice and guidance on the use of vaccines to prevent and control disease. Physicians, parents, community leaders and public health officials rely on them for clinical guidance, public health information, and knowledge. Today’s action to remove the 17 sitting members of ACIP undermines that trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives. With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses.”

The administration is matching this malgovernance abroad. Their “rescissions” bill cancels the entire U.S. contribution to GAVI, along with hundreds of millions of dollars meant for child and maternal health, HIV/AIDS, and other public health programs. (Sample justification, direct quote: “programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health.’”) If the Senate approves it, the U.S.’ commitment to vaccination abroad will shrivel to pretty much nothing.

Both at home and abroad, then, public complacency has grown and government policy deteriorated. If the approach of the administration’s first five months persists, the next three years may be somber: an era in which long-vanished diseases return in force to America, children’s health erodes here and abroad, and life grows more dangerous. Congress, we hope, is aware that the right approach is diametrically opposite. Again, vaccines have made life longer, safer and better. We need more of them, not less.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.