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With US's Measles-Free Status in Danger, ABC Fails to Mention Trump and MAHA as Cause Olivia Riggio ([link removed])


US Measles Tracker: Measles cases reported in the United States

Johns Hopkins' US Measles Tracker ([link removed]) .

Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000. This was a major public health milestone, as the extremely contagious disease is fatal in as many as 3 in 1,000 cases, and requires hospitalization in about 1 in 9, heavily impacting unvaccinated children under 5 (Harvard Health Publishing, 6/6/26 ([link removed] can be serious and even fatal&text=Complications are most common among,in nine %E2%80%94 have required hospitalization.) ).

Intensive campaigns to increase application of the two-dose MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, which is 97% effective against measles, are largely responsible for this achievement. Measles vaccination prevented an estimated 59 million deaths globally between 2000 and 2024 (WHO, 11/24/25 ([link removed]) ). While the disease still persists worldwide, cases in the US have remained minimal, coming mainly from unvaccinated individuals who contract it outside of the country.

But that all changed in 2025, when cases began surging in pockets of South Carolina, Texas and Arizona. Since January 1, 2025, the US has seen 2,540 measles cases ([link removed]) , with 328 in January 2026 alone. Forty-nine outbreaks occurred in 2025, compared to 16 the previous year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data ([link removed] have been 49 outbreaks,preliminary and subject to change.) . The disease killed ([link removed]) two unvaccinated children in Texas last year.

We are now at risk of losing our elimination status.

In order to maintain herd immunity against one of the world's most contagious diseases ([link removed]) , public health experts aim for a vaccination rate of at least 95% of the population. But US rates have been slipping—from 95.2% in the 2019–20 kindergarten class, to 92.5% in the 2024–25 class—due to a resurgence of vaccine hesitancy across the nation.


** 'I don't agree with vaccinations'
------------------------------------------------------------
ABC: Measles vaccine acceptance is mixed amid outbreaks across the US: Experts

ABC News (1/16/26 ([link removed]) ) said doctors are "experiencing the effects of fears and questions about measles and vaccination from their community"—as though anti-vaccine sentiments were simply a grassroots phenomenon.

An ABC News piece (1/16/26 ([link removed]) ), headlined “Measles Vaccine Acceptance Is Mixed Amid Outbreaks Across the US,” traced efforts across the country to increase vaccination rates and address vaccine hesitancy amid these growing outbreaks.

While the piece centers on reluctance to vaccinate and its consequences, it fails to name the administration and its individuals currently sowing much of this doubt and confusion: President Donald Trump, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and others in the so-called Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.

ABC News health correspondent Dr. Jade Cobern reported:

Health experts working in and near measles outbreaks told ABC News that vaccine acceptance has been mixed among these communities, with some people begging to get their kids vaccinated early, while others still refuse an immunization.

David Heaton, public information officer at the Southwest Utah Department of Public Health, told Cobern that “those with strong beliefs against vaccines have been ‘fairly immovable.’” He said:

We're just seeing the attitude of, "I choose not to get vaccinated. I don't agree with vaccinations, and I'm not going to do it. I don't feel the risk is high enough to get the vaccine."

The piece failed to mention any possible cause of this growing anti-vaccine sentiment, despite the fact that the Trump administration has placed Kennedy, one of the anti-vax movement's most prominent voices, in the most powerful federal health position.

Dr. Deborah Greenhouse, a South Carolina pediatrician and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told ABC that "building a foundation of trust has been essential for vaccine acceptance." But, the piece explained, Greenhouse "said trying to build trust among families has been particularly challenging amid changing guidance from federal health agencies and widespread misinformation." She said:

Unfortunately, some of the awful sources right now are people that you used to think you could trust and, as a new parent, I totally understand why it would be incredibly difficult to be able to figure out right now.

The piece then vaguely mentions “changing guidance from federal health agencies and misinformation,” without explaining whether or how the two were connected. What is this “misinformation”? Who are the “awful sources”? The reader can only infer.


** 'Leads to deaths every year'
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Stat: RFK Jr. was paid six figures by his vaccine-challenging group before presidential run

"Six figures" understates how much Kennedy was taking in as an anti-vaccine crusader; according to Stat (12/3/24 ([link removed] Disease Reporter-,Robert F.,president%2C new tax filings show.) ), he was making $20,000 a week, which amounts to more than $1 million a year.

Before heading Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy spent years sowing doubt about vaccines, previously helming the anti-vax group Children’s Health Defense, and lining his pockets with millions from it (Stat, 12/3/24 ([link removed] Disease Reporter-,Robert F.,president%2C new tax filings show.) ).

Kennedy made a half-baked attempt at course-correcting amid the 2025 measles outbreak in Texas with a Fox News op-ed (3/2/25 ([link removed]) ) with the subheadline, “MMR Vaccine Is Crucial to Avoiding Potentially Deadly Disease.” While he said in the piece, “Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity,” he also remarked that “good nutrition remains a best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses.” (The American Academy of Pediatrics debunks ([link removed]) the dangerous claim, pushed by Kennedy ([link removed]) , that Vitamin A can prevent or cure measles.) “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” Kennedy pointedly noted.

Despite claiming that he is not anti-vaccine during his confirmation hearings, Kennedy cannot hide his culpability in the growth of anti-vax attitudes: He has falsely linked ([link removed]) the MMR vaccine to autism, including during his Senate confirmation hearings, and claimed that “no vaccine” is safe and effective (FactCheck.org, 11/8/23 ([link removed]) ; Important Context, 3/3/25 ([link removed]) ). A deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa was widely blamed on anti-vax disinformation spread in the island nation by Kennedy and Children’s Health Defense (Atlanta News First, 8/20/25 ([link removed]) ).

Even after he published the Fox op-ed last March, Kennedy appeared in a Fox News interview on Hannity (3/11/25) ([link removed]) to downplay the outbreak, falsely claiming that the measles vaccine “leads to deaths every year” (FactCheck.org, 3/21/25 ([link removed]) ).


** Flouting the review process
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NPR: Ousted CDC director testifies she was fired for resisting pressure from RFK Jr.

Kennedy fired CDC director Susan Monarez (NPR, 9/17/25 ([link removed]) ), replacing her with Peter Thiel protege Jim O'Neill (Guardian, 8/28/25 ([link removed]) ).

As HHS secretary, Kennedy oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); he forced out its director, Susan Monarez, who said she had been pressured to rubber-stamp his vaccine recommendations (NPR, 9/17/25 ([link removed]) ). Whereas CDC's medical guidance used to be widely respected, the agency is now facing widespread condemnations from physicians, epidemiologists and other public health experts.

While ABC referred to federal health agencies' “changing guidance," it's not changing by some act of nature, like the tide, or responding to new scientific research. Rather, it's changing because Trump is giving free rein to figures who formerly sat on the fringes, and these changes go against scientific and medical consensus, leaving us vulnerable to infectious disease.

The Trump administration recently rolled out ([link removed]) a new childhood immunization schedule, withdrawing recommendations that all children receive vaccines for hepatitis A and B, influenza, meningitis, RSV and rotavirus. In true Trumpian fashion, this decision that will impact the health of millions of children circumvented regular channels, flouting a rigorous review process by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) (which is now stacked ([link removed]) with anti-vaxxers and Covid contrarians, anyway).

Instead, the changes were implemented based on a "comprehensive scientific assessment” ([link removed]) published by HHS that did not cite new scientific data, but rather cited the vaccine schedule of Denmark—an outlier ([link removed]) in how few childhood vaccinations it recommends—as a reason to give American children less protection. The fact that the US lacks Danish universal healthcare and the social safety net that protects vulnerable populations was not taken into account (Stat, 12/19/25 ([link removed]) ; Contagion Live, 1/5/26 ([link removed]) ).

The HHS "assessment" was written by Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, acting director for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, and Martin Kulldorff, chief science and data officer for the assistant secretary for planning and evaluation—both known for their fringe anti-vax views (Important Context, 4/29/25 ([link removed]) , 12/4/25 ([link removed]) ).

The decision memo ([link removed]) was also written by notorious public health contrarians: National Institutes of Health director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Food and Drug commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, and CMS administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz (Important Context, 11/16/24 ([link removed]) , 11/20/24 ([link removed]) , 11/21/24 ([link removed]) ).


** 'Sitting duck for an outbreak'
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Public health groups, including the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Physicians, are suing over these recommendations, and trying to block the CDC’s next ACIP meeting (The Hill, 1/20/26 ([link removed]) ).

“Children's health depends on vaccine recommendations based on rigorous, transparent science,” said ([link removed] group of medical professional,process%2C necessitating immediate legal action.) Dr. Andrew D. Racine of the American Academy of Pediatrics in a recent press release:

Unfortunately, recent decisions by federal officials have abandoned this standard, causing unnecessary confusion for families, compromising access to lifesaving vaccines and weakening community protection.

But instead of bringing any of this information up, the ABC piece continued to talk around the issue of disinformation.

"If more families decline the vaccines, our vaccination rates drop and we become an open target, essentially a sitting duck for an outbreak," Greenhouse told ABC.

As demonstrated in the piece, medical disinformation has real-life consequences for American families. But discussing vaccine hesitancy without naming some of its core instigators leaves a massive hole in a critical story.
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