February 24, 2025 • 23 mins
There's a measles outbreak spreading in Texas, with nearly 100 cases so far. This week, Drs. Alicia and Stephanie Rolin talk about that outbreak, the disease, and, most importantly, steps you can take to protect yourselves and your family.
This is not intended to be medical advice, and the content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of their employers or funders
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Rolin Forward podcast.
(00:09):
I'm Dr. Alicia Rolin.
I'm Dr. Stephanie Rolin.
We're a podcast that likes to talk about science, news, policies, things as they're actually
happening.
This week we're going to talk about measles.
There's a pretty large outbreak of measles that's happening in Texas right now, and it's
something that we've been keeping our eyes on.
(00:30):
Health officials are sounding the alarm now as the number of measles cases in West Texas
continues to grow up to 90 now, tripling in just a matter of days.
Sixteen patients had to be hospitalized.
Nearly all of those infected children, and in almost every case, the patient was unvaccinated.
Over in New Mexico, the Department of Health has confirmed the state's first measles case
(00:53):
of the year.
The NMDOH confirmed the infection in an unvaccinated Lee County teenager.
The department speculates that Lee County borders Gaines County, Texas, which is dealing
with a measles outbreak.
However, the teenager says they had no recent exposure to known cases from the Texas outbreak.
New Mexico had two measles cases last year, which were the first cases the state had seen
(01:15):
since 2021.
So we're going to talk about what is measles?
What it looks like, symptoms and treatment, duration.
We're going to talk about the measles vaccine and its history.
We're going to specifically talk in a little more detail about this outbreak, and then
we'll talk about some next steps and how to protect yourself.
(01:36):
So one thing that's interesting about measles is that Alicia and I both went to medical
school after measles was considered eradicated in the United States.
Daphne, what does that mean, eradicated, if we're still seeing some cases?
So measles was considered eradicated in the United States in the year 2000 because there
were no cases of measles that were spreading within the United States for at least 12 months.
(02:02):
But there are still cases of measles happening in America.
This typically happens when an unvaccinated person travels internationally to the United
States and then measles start spreading within the United States.
And we've seen small little outbreaks pop up here and there over time.
There was a larger outbreak in 2015.
(02:23):
There was an outbreak in 2019, which we remember very well.
And now there is this larger outbreak in Texas.
But before we talk more about that, let's talk about what is measles.
Measles is a virus that is highly contagious.
It is caused by the measles virus.
It is also called rubeola.
(02:45):
It is not to be confused with rubella or rosiola or German measles.
Those are all different diseases.
This tripped me up during my second year of medical schools when we had to keep all these
diseases straight.
But measles or rubeola is its own illness and it is spread through the air.
So someone may cough or sneeze and then there'll be the measles virus in those secretions.
(03:13):
And what's unusual about measles is how contagious it is.
It can stay in the air for up to two hours and it will infect 90% of people who come
into contact in that space.
So for example, if a person with measles walks into a store and sneezes and then walks out,
(03:37):
any susceptible person walking into that store for the next two hours, 90% of them will develop
measles.
That's huge.
And because of that highly contagious nature of spread, it's anticipated that every person
with measles can infect up to 20 other people.
I see those numbers multiplying really quickly.
(03:57):
One person, 20 people, each 20 people giving it to 20 people.
I can't even do that math anymore.
They all give it to 20 people.
It multiplies.
It is the definition of the game pandemic where you see one person getting sick and
then spreading it to everyone.
And part of the reason that happens is that you start spreading measles before you know
(04:19):
you have measles.
The first time that you have measles is a really high fever.
But you know, what kid doesn't have a fever every couple of weeks when they're in daycare?
So it's really nonspecific.
You might just have a fever and no other symptoms and not realize yet that you have measles and
be spreading it to other people.
Symptoms of measles typically occur 10 to 14 days after you're exposed.
(04:43):
And like Stephanie said, for the first few days you tend to really only have high fever.
And where flu season has been really bad and we've been seeing really high fevers, it can
be really hard to know or differentiate measles from other illnesses.
After developing fever a few days later, patients tend to develop cough, runny nose, irritated
(05:07):
nose, sometimes some eye redness called conjunctivitis, looking a little bit like pink eye.
And a couple days after the fever, you start seeing the more traditional rash that we associate
with measles.
That's what I remember learning in medical school.
You get this full body rash and then you might also get these white spots in your mouth that
(05:27):
are a sign of measles.
So the acute effects of measles, someone who's ill, people often tend to have secondary bacterial
infections so you might see something like pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia as well.
People can develop blindness, they can develop hearing loss, and then one in a thousand people
will develop acute encephalitis, which is an acute infection of the brain that is life
(05:52):
threatening.
Measles can be a really serious disease and about 25% or one in four people will require
hospitalization when they are infected with measles.
The most common reasons to be hospitalized include those bacterial infections, particularly
pneumonia, which can be quite devastating, and or hydration because it's hard to stay
(06:13):
hydrated especially for little kids when you're sick.
And measles is deadly.
Over 100,000 people died of measles last year globally.
It is true that deaths are lower in the United States than in other parts of the world where
people may not have access to the same levels of nutrition or medical care for co-occurring
(06:35):
diseases like HIV, but overall people do continue to die of measles.
Measles can also have some longer lasting impacts than just at the time of illness.
That's right, Alicia.
There's been some really interesting studies that have shown that after a person is sick
with measles and recovers, there's this total depletion of their immune system where they
(07:00):
used to have immunity to diseases from either vaccines or having them in pass and that immune
system just gets wiped out.
So now they're vulnerable to all kinds of infections for years to come.
There's also a rare but extremely serious complication of measles called subacute squirosing
panencephalitis.
This is a form of brain inflammation that's universally fatal.
(07:23):
It's essentially like a slow chronic infection of measles in your brain tissue.
And it leads to a progressive neurological decline.
You start seeing behavior changes, mood swings, memory loss, and it eventually leads to seizures,
blindness, and death.
It's terrifying.
The rates are pretty rare, but it's estimated that it's actually much more common in unvaccinated
(07:46):
children under the age of 15 months.
And it's estimated that's about one in 600.
So not the most common thing, but one in 600, like I see more than 600 patients a year.
It still scares me.
It's the kind of thing that gives me nightmares.
And one of the concerns for measles is that we don't really have specific treatment for
(08:06):
measles.
Once someone's ill with measles, we provide what's called supportive care, where if they're
having trouble with breathing, we focus on breathing.
If they're dehydrated, we provide hydration.
But there's nothing specific to make the measles go away.
We tend to treat with vitamin A, and that's not a treatment for measles.
It doesn't make your measles go away, but there have been some studies that show that
(08:32):
it might reduce the risk of blindness, but it doesn't overall make your measles go away
faster.
The best treatment for measles is to prevent measles from happening.
By a vaccine that's been available since the 1960s.
So before this vaccine was available, the death rate for measles in the United States
was around 30%.
And the people that were most at risk were children under five and pregnant women at
(08:55):
higher risk.
And if you're thinking that you don't know anyone who's died of measles, that's because
we now have had a vaccine for about 60 years.
Vaccines have been incredibly effective for preventing the spread of measles and for preventing
serious disease.
The measles vaccine is a two vaccine series.
You get the first one in the US at age 12 months and the second one between age four
(09:18):
and five.
Just having one vaccine is 95% effective against measles and that second vaccine improves your
immunity to 99%.
And life threatening adverse reactions occur in less than one per 1 million people that
are vaccinated.
So this is less than 0.0001% of people who are vaccinated have a life threatening adverse
(09:43):
reaction.
I think of all the vaccines, the measles vaccines, which is part of the MMR, mumps, measles and
rubella vaccine has been the most controversial and the most talked about in the media.
And that's really been since a paper that was published in the late 1990s, which linked
the MMR vaccine to autism.
(10:03):
This is the paper that really spurred the rhetoric around vaccines and autism.
And the paper not only was a pretty flawed paper, it only included 12 patients.
I think it was all at a birthday party.
It was like a convenient sampling.
It was a person who went to a party and was like, oh, all these kids have autism and decided
(10:27):
to write a paper about it.
It later was discovered by some investigative journalism that the author of that paper had
totally manipulated the evidence.
And what that means is that he essentially lied and made up data.
And this paper was retracted from the Landsat and the editor in chief described it as utterly
false and that the journal had been deceived by the authors misleading scientific practices.
(10:53):
Since then, there have been hundreds of studies that have looked at the link between vaccine
and autism.
This has been extensively investigated and debunked.
No link has been shown.
And we can't get into those hundreds of studies, but let us just say that there is strong evidence
that there's no association between the measles vaccine, between vaccines in general and autism.
(11:14):
And one clear example of this is that there is no difference in the rates of autism between
children who are vaccinated with the MMR vaccine and children who are not vaccinated with the
MMR vaccine.
And the reasons why this is really important is the way that vaccines work.
And that's through something called herd immunity.
(11:35):
Herd immunity is the concept that if enough people are immune to a disease through vaccination
or have gotten the illness, then the disease can't find enough susceptible people to jump
around and keep infecting people.
That the virus is stuck in a person and can't keep transmitting.
This is particularly important for measles, which does not have an animal reservoir.
(11:59):
It can only affect humans.
It can't affect any other species.
And it's also important for measles because it's so, so contagious.
So when we see even a small decrease in vaccination rates, say from that magic number of 90% of
95%, which we believe confers herd immunity, we see it decreased to 93 or 90%.
All of a sudden there's an opening for measles to start spreading.
(12:23):
And that's what we're seeing.
Yeah, we've started to see this in recent years.
I remember when I was living in New York in 2019, we saw a measles outbreak in Brooklyn,
New York, and one in nearby Rockland County that was really concentrated in the Orthodox
Jewish community.
Mises started spreading and just couldn't stop.
(12:46):
And it was declared a public health emergency.
Officials decided to mandate vaccines for people living within the zip codes that were
most infected.
Fines were issued to people who were unvaccinated and schools banned unvaccinated students from
attending because there were these high rates of community transmission that started to
happen.
(13:07):
This was deeply unpopular.
Really, really unpopular.
But ultimately it was effective.
600 people were ill and it's estimated that it took over 60,000 doses of MMR vaccines
to stop the outbreak from becoming even bigger.
This was at the time where Donald Trump was president for the first time.
(13:31):
And due to this outbreak, he really changed his stance on vaccinations.
He went from saying parents should choose to insisting that children need to be vaccinated.
And he said, quote, they have to get the shots.
(13:53):
The vaccinations are so important, end quote.
And he actually called upon the Surgeon General to crack down on exemptions for vaccinations
for public schools.
That's right, Dr. Jerome Adams was Surgeon General at the time.
And along with Trump, together they really limited the exemptions to vaccination and
(14:13):
that helped stop this outbreak.
Fast forward now five years and we're in the midst of another big outbreak that has started
in the South Plains region of western Texas.
And there are now some cases reported in neighboring New Mexico.
Well in west Texas, a fast growing measles outbreak is getting much worse now.
(14:36):
In just two weeks, the outbreak has jumped from two children in Gaines County to now
at least 48 people across four Texas counties.
Authorities have also confirmed illnesses in nearby New Mexico.
The measles outbreak in southeastern New Mexico is growing.
New Mexico health officials say there are now eight cases in Lee County.
DOH officials say a family of five all tested positive and they are isolating.
(15:00):
So far the measles cases involve four adults and four juveniles here in New Mexico.
Six of them were not vaccinated.
The outbreak in Texas started in a small Mennonite community in that region.
There has been some disinformation online suggesting that this outbreak is related to
(15:22):
people who are undocumented immigrants, but it's up now there's no evidence of that.
And it really seems to be within this Mennonite community in Gaines County.
And we've seen a lot of these outbreaks start in religious communities because it's a large
unvaccinated population.
(15:43):
In 2019, it was largely in the Orthodox community in Brooklyn.
And that's not necessarily related to religious choices.
It's really been linked to lifestyle choices.
And what that means is that when people live in religious communities, they may choose
to send their children predominantly to private schools or to other nonpublic forms of education
(16:06):
that don't require the same levels of vaccination as a public school might.
And so it isn't necessary that communities are anti-vaccine, but that the way that the
community is set up, vaccines are not mandated in the same way.
There have been just under 100 cases that have been reported, the majority of which
(16:27):
have been unvaccinated children ages 5 to 17.
But there have been a pretty substantial number of kids under the age of 4.
And these are the kids at highest risk.
So while about 1 in 4, 25% of people with measles require hospitalization, so far in
2025, about 43% of children under the age of 4 have required hospitalization for measles.
(16:50):
And typically, MMR vaccination, which includes vaccination against the measles virus, is
required for school-aged children around ages 12 months, and then again around 4 years with
the second shot.
But increasingly, what we've seen are exemptions for philosophical or religious reasons.
And what we're seeing is that this outbreak is starting in a county that has very high
(17:15):
vaccine exemptions.
Only about 16% of the student body in that region has some type of exemption against
vaccination.
So vaccination rates of kids are around 85%.
And one school in that region has about 50% of kids with a vaccine exemption.
This is the perfect setting for measles to spread.
(17:37):
And that's what we're seeing.
So 95% of the cases are among people who are either unvaccinated or have unknown vaccine
status.
And the rest are among people who have one dose of the recommended two doses of the vaccine.
But there haven't been any documented cases as of now among people who have had both recommended
(18:00):
doses of MMR vaccine.
Vaccines are so effective.
And like we talked about, when you complete the two vaccine series, it provides immunity
in 99% of people.
And it's concerning right now because measles is so contagious.
And there's this big period of time where you don't know that you're sick, that measles
can continue spreading.
(18:21):
So if we have these 90 known cases right now, how many unknown cases are in that region?
We don't know yet.
And that there's also the potential for people to travel in and out of that region and spread
it even further.
So we'll be watching closely and we'll kind of see how this outbreak unfolds.
There's concerns that it's going to get significantly worse before it gets better.
(18:45):
When living in New York in 2019, I remember how rapidly and how exponentially these cases
grew.
So it is something that I'm worried about.
There was a whole 2015 outbreak linked to Disney World.
And so if one person goes to a place where people travel from, it's concerning that you
could spread quickly, widely, broadly.
(19:11):
So we wanted to end today's episode with a couple tips on how to keep yourself and your
family safe.
And we recommend discussing all of these with your doctor.
In general, a place to start is knowing your vaccine status.
Have you and your family members been vaccinated against MMR?
Sometimes it's hard to have your vaccine records from when you were young.
(19:31):
Maybe you've immigrated or your family's moved, so you're not sure.
And if you're not sure, you can talk to your doctor and people do what's called a titer
where they draw your antibody level to see if you have immunity against certain illnesses,
including measles.
You can also just get a vaccine.
Vaccines are widely available, including at most pharmacies.
(19:52):
You can make an appointment for like a clinic.
Vaccines are typically covered by insurance.
But if you don't have insurance, or if for some reason your insurance isn't covering
it, they're typically about $100.
Another great place to go can be your local Department of Health, and they typically are
free.
And children are the most vulnerable.
The vaccine is typically given around 12 months of age and the second dose at four to six
(20:16):
years.
If you live near one of these places where outbreaks are happening, or if you're going
to be traveling, it's important to ensure that the vaccines are being done on schedule.
And that's something that you can talk about with your doctor.
You can actually get the MMR vaccine as young as six months.
And so if you are near one of these areas, if you're traveling, if you're concerned,
(20:41):
you can talk to your pediatrician and see if you can get it early.
And similarly, boosters can be given to people.
So maybe it's been a long time since you've been vaccinated.
Typically boosters are recommended for anyone vaccinated before 1968.
But if you're not sure, talk to your doctor and see whether that's an option for you.
Because as we start to see measles spreading in this region and the potential for it to
(21:02):
spread elsewhere, it's important to make sure that you and your family have the level of
protection that's right for you.
So for updates on this outbreak, there's a few different places that you can get information.
It appears that the CDC website on measles is beginning to update those numbers again.
As of February 21st, the CDC has said that they will update the page every Friday.
(21:27):
So we will see if that happens.
And the Texas Department of Health is also providing updated numbers pretty regularly.
But those are going to be focused on the cases in Texas.
And they won't include spread to neighboring states like New Mexico.
It also won't follow different outbreaks.
And in 2025 alone, we've seen five other states outside of New Mexico and Texas affected.
(21:48):
So widespread problem.
I feel like we're always bringing really positive health updates here.
But this is where we are right now, that there are these outbreaks happening and they're
affecting families in this country right now.
Thank you for tuning in.
This is the Rolin Forward podcast.
(22:09):
I'm Dr. Alicia Rolin
I'm Dr. Stephanie Rolin.
And if you like this podcast, tell a friend.
Maybe something comes up during a conversation.
You guys are casually chatting by the water cooler and measles comes up.
We're special education programs.
And so you want to share what our podcast is about.
So we would love that word of mouth really helps us spread towards new interested listeners.
(22:33):
And we have listeners in Texas where this is particularly relevant.
As well as Washington, DC, upstate New York throughout the country.
And we thank you for tuning in and listening with us.
You can always email us at Roland Forward Show.
R-O-L-I-N Forward Show at gmail.com.
(22:53):
And follow along with us on social media.
Thank you for your time today.
Until next time.
Sorry, I have the hiccups.
Welcome to the Rolin Forward podcast.
(00:09):
I'm Dr. Alicia Rolin.
I'm Dr. Stephanie Rolin.
We're a podcast that likes to talk about science, news, policies, things as they're actually
happening.
This week we're going to talk about measles.
There's a pretty large outbreak of measles that's happening in Texas right now, and it's
something that we've been keeping our eyes on.
(00:30):
Health officials are sounding the alarm now as the number of measles cases in West Texas
continues to grow up to 90 now, tripling in just a matter of days.
Sixteen patients had to be hospitalized.
Nearly all of those infected children, and in almost every case, the patient was unvaccinated.
Over in New Mexico, the Department of Health has confirmed the state's first measles case
(00:53):
of the year.
The NMDOH confirmed the infection in an unvaccinated Lee County teenager.
The department speculates that Lee County borders Gaines County, Texas, which is dealing
with a measles outbreak.
However, the teenager says they had no recent exposure to known cases from the Texas outbreak.
New Mexico had two measles cases last year, which were the first cases the state had seen
(01:15):
since 2021.
So we're going to talk about what is measles?
What it looks like, symptoms and treatment, duration.
We're going to talk about the measles vaccine and its history.
We're going to specifically talk in a little more detail about this outbreak, and then
we'll talk about some next steps and how to protect yourself.
(01:36):
So one thing that's interesting about measles is that Alicia and I both went to medical
school after measles was considered eradicated in the United States.
Daphne, what does that mean, eradicated, if we're still seeing some cases?
So measles was considered eradicated in the United States in the year 2000 because there
were no cases of measles that were spreading within the United States for at least 12 months.
(02:02):
But there are still cases of measles happening in America.
This typically happens when an unvaccinated person travels internationally to the United
States and then measles start spreading within the United States.
And we've seen small little outbreaks pop up here and there over time.
There was a larger outbreak in 2015.
(02:23):
There was an outbreak in 2019, which we remember very well.
And now there is this larger outbreak in Texas.
But before we talk more about that, let's talk about what is measles.
Measles is a virus that is highly contagious.
It is caused by the measles virus.
It is also called rubeola.
(02:45):
It is not to be confused with rubella or rosiola or German measles.
Those are all different diseases.
This tripped me up during my second year of medical schools when we had to keep all these
diseases straight.
But measles or rubeola is its own illness and it is spread through the air.
So someone may cough or sneeze and then there'll be the measles virus in those secretions.
(03:13):
And what's unusual about measles is how contagious it is.
It can stay in the air for up to two hours and it will infect 90% of people who come
into contact in that space.
So for example, if a person with measles walks into a store and sneezes and then walks out,
(03:37):
any susceptible person walking into that store for the next two hours, 90% of them will develop
measles.
That's huge.
And because of that highly contagious nature of spread, it's anticipated that every person
with measles can infect up to 20 other people.
I see those numbers multiplying really quickly.
(03:57):
One person, 20 people, each 20 people giving it to 20 people.
I can't even do that math anymore.
They all give it to 20 people.
It multiplies.
It is the definition of the game pandemic where you see one person getting sick and
then spreading it to everyone.
And part of the reason that happens is that you start spreading measles before you know
(04:19):
you have measles.
The first time that you have measles is a really high fever.
But you know, what kid doesn't have a fever every couple of weeks when they're in daycare?
So it's really nonspecific.
You might just have a fever and no other symptoms and not realize yet that you have measles and
be spreading it to other people.
Symptoms of measles typically occur 10 to 14 days after you're exposed.
(04:43):
And like Stephanie said, for the first few days you tend to really only have high fever.
And where flu season has been really bad and we've been seeing really high fevers, it can
be really hard to know or differentiate measles from other illnesses.
After developing fever a few days later, patients tend to develop cough, runny nose, irritated
(05:07):
nose, sometimes some eye redness called conjunctivitis, looking a little bit like pink eye.
And a couple days after the fever, you start seeing the more traditional rash that we associate
with measles.
That's what I remember learning in medical school.
You get this full body rash and then you might also get these white spots in your mouth that
(05:27):
are a sign of measles.
So the acute effects of measles, someone who's ill, people often tend to have secondary bacterial
infections so you might see something like pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia as well.
People can develop blindness, they can develop hearing loss, and then one in a thousand people
will develop acute encephalitis, which is an acute infection of the brain that is life
(05:52):
threatening.
Measles can be a really serious disease and about 25% or one in four people will require
hospitalization when they are infected with measles.
The most common reasons to be hospitalized include those bacterial infections, particularly
pneumonia, which can be quite devastating, and or hydration because it's hard to stay
(06:13):
hydrated especially for little kids when you're sick.
And measles is deadly.
Over 100,000 people died of measles last year globally.
It is true that deaths are lower in the United States than in other parts of the world where
people may not have access to the same levels of nutrition or medical care for co-occurring
(06:35):
diseases like HIV, but overall people do continue to die of measles.
Measles can also have some longer lasting impacts than just at the time of illness.
That's right, Alicia.
There's been some really interesting studies that have shown that after a person is sick
with measles and recovers, there's this total depletion of their immune system where they
(07:00):
used to have immunity to diseases from either vaccines or having them in pass and that immune
system just gets wiped out.
So now they're vulnerable to all kinds of infections for years to come.
There's also a rare but extremely serious complication of measles called subacute squirosing
panencephalitis.
This is a form of brain inflammation that's universally fatal.
(07:23):
It's essentially like a slow chronic infection of measles in your brain tissue.
And it leads to a progressive neurological decline.
You start seeing behavior changes, mood swings, memory loss, and it eventually leads to seizures,
blindness, and death.
It's terrifying.
The rates are pretty rare, but it's estimated that it's actually much more common in unvaccinated
(07:46):
children under the age of 15 months.
And it's estimated that's about one in 600.
So not the most common thing, but one in 600, like I see more than 600 patients a year.
It still scares me.
It's the kind of thing that gives me nightmares.
And one of the concerns for measles is that we don't really have specific treatment for
(08:06):
measles.
Once someone's ill with measles, we provide what's called supportive care, where if they're
having trouble with breathing, we focus on breathing.
If they're dehydrated, we provide hydration.
But there's nothing specific to make the measles go away.
We tend to treat with vitamin A, and that's not a treatment for measles.
It doesn't make your measles go away, but there have been some studies that show that
(08:32):
it might reduce the risk of blindness, but it doesn't overall make your measles go away
faster.
The best treatment for measles is to prevent measles from happening.
By a vaccine that's been available since the 1960s.
So before this vaccine was available, the death rate for measles in the United States
was around 30%.
And the people that were most at risk were children under five and pregnant women at
(08:55):
higher risk.
And if you're thinking that you don't know anyone who's died of measles, that's because
we now have had a vaccine for about 60 years.
Vaccines have been incredibly effective for preventing the spread of measles and for preventing
serious disease.
The measles vaccine is a two vaccine series.
You get the first one in the US at age 12 months and the second one between age four
(09:18):
and five.
Just having one vaccine is 95% effective against measles and that second vaccine improves your
immunity to 99%.
And life threatening adverse reactions occur in less than one per 1 million people that
are vaccinated.
So this is less than 0.0001% of people who are vaccinated have a life threatening adverse
(09:43):
reaction.
I think of all the vaccines, the measles vaccines, which is part of the MMR, mumps, measles and
rubella vaccine has been the most controversial and the most talked about in the media.
And that's really been since a paper that was published in the late 1990s, which linked
the MMR vaccine to autism.
(10:03):
This is the paper that really spurred the rhetoric around vaccines and autism.
And the paper not only was a pretty flawed paper, it only included 12 patients.
I think it was all at a birthday party.
It was like a convenient sampling.
It was a person who went to a party and was like, oh, all these kids have autism and decided
(10:27):
to write a paper about it.
It later was discovered by some investigative journalism that the author of that paper had
totally manipulated the evidence.
And what that means is that he essentially lied and made up data.
And this paper was retracted from the Landsat and the editor in chief described it as utterly
false and that the journal had been deceived by the authors misleading scientific practices.
(10:53):
Since then, there have been hundreds of studies that have looked at the link between vaccine
and autism.
This has been extensively investigated and debunked.
No link has been shown.
And we can't get into those hundreds of studies, but let us just say that there is strong evidence
that there's no association between the measles vaccine, between vaccines in general and autism.
(11:14):
And one clear example of this is that there is no difference in the rates of autism between
children who are vaccinated with the MMR vaccine and children who are not vaccinated with the
MMR vaccine.
And the reasons why this is really important is the way that vaccines work.
And that's through something called herd immunity.
(11:35):
Herd immunity is the concept that if enough people are immune to a disease through vaccination
or have gotten the illness, then the disease can't find enough susceptible people to jump
around and keep infecting people.
That the virus is stuck in a person and can't keep transmitting.
This is particularly important for measles, which does not have an animal reservoir.
(11:59):
It can only affect humans.
It can't affect any other species.
And it's also important for measles because it's so, so contagious.
So when we see even a small decrease in vaccination rates, say from that magic number of 90% of
95%, which we believe confers herd immunity, we see it decreased to 93 or 90%.
All of a sudden there's an opening for measles to start spreading.
(12:23):
And that's what we're seeing.
Yeah, we've started to see this in recent years.
I remember when I was living in New York in 2019, we saw a measles outbreak in Brooklyn,
New York, and one in nearby Rockland County that was really concentrated in the Orthodox
Jewish community.
Mises started spreading and just couldn't stop.
(12:46):
And it was declared a public health emergency.
Officials decided to mandate vaccines for people living within the zip codes that were
most infected.
Fines were issued to people who were unvaccinated and schools banned unvaccinated students from
attending because there were these high rates of community transmission that started to
happen.
(13:07):
This was deeply unpopular.
Really, really unpopular.
But ultimately it was effective.
600 people were ill and it's estimated that it took over 60,000 doses of MMR vaccines
to stop the outbreak from becoming even bigger.
This was at the time where Donald Trump was president for the first time.
(13:31):
And due to this outbreak, he really changed his stance on vaccinations.
He went from saying parents should choose to insisting that children need to be vaccinated.
And he said, quote, they have to get the shots.
(13:53):
The vaccinations are so important, end quote.
And he actually called upon the Surgeon General to crack down on exemptions for vaccinations
for public schools.
That's right, Dr. Jerome Adams was Surgeon General at the time.
And along with Trump, together they really limited the exemptions to vaccination and
(14:13):
that helped stop this outbreak.
Fast forward now five years and we're in the midst of another big outbreak that has started
in the South Plains region of western Texas.
And there are now some cases reported in neighboring New Mexico.
Well in west Texas, a fast growing measles outbreak is getting much worse now.
(14:36):
In just two weeks, the outbreak has jumped from two children in Gaines County to now
at least 48 people across four Texas counties.
Authorities have also confirmed illnesses in nearby New Mexico.
The measles outbreak in southeastern New Mexico is growing.
New Mexico health officials say there are now eight cases in Lee County.
DOH officials say a family of five all tested positive and they are isolating.
(15:00):
So far the measles cases involve four adults and four juveniles here in New Mexico.
Six of them were not vaccinated.
The outbreak in Texas started in a small Mennonite community in that region.
There has been some disinformation online suggesting that this outbreak is related to
(15:22):
people who are undocumented immigrants, but it's up now there's no evidence of that.
And it really seems to be within this Mennonite community in Gaines County.
And we've seen a lot of these outbreaks start in religious communities because it's a large
unvaccinated population.
(15:43):
In 2019, it was largely in the Orthodox community in Brooklyn.
And that's not necessarily related to religious choices.
It's really been linked to lifestyle choices.
And what that means is that when people live in religious communities, they may choose
to send their children predominantly to private schools or to other nonpublic forms of education
(16:06):
that don't require the same levels of vaccination as a public school might.
And so it isn't necessary that communities are anti-vaccine, but that the way that the
community is set up, vaccines are not mandated in the same way.
There have been just under 100 cases that have been reported, the majority of which
(16:27):
have been unvaccinated children ages 5 to 17.
But there have been a pretty substantial number of kids under the age of 4.
And these are the kids at highest risk.
So while about 1 in 4, 25% of people with measles require hospitalization, so far in
2025, about 43% of children under the age of 4 have required hospitalization for measles.
(16:50):
And typically, MMR vaccination, which includes vaccination against the measles virus, is
required for school-aged children around ages 12 months, and then again around 4 years with
the second shot.
But increasingly, what we've seen are exemptions for philosophical or religious reasons.
And what we're seeing is that this outbreak is starting in a county that has very high
(17:15):
vaccine exemptions.
Only about 16% of the student body in that region has some type of exemption against
vaccination.
So vaccination rates of kids are around 85%.
And one school in that region has about 50% of kids with a vaccine exemption.
This is the perfect setting for measles to spread.
(17:37):
And that's what we're seeing.
So 95% of the cases are among people who are either unvaccinated or have unknown vaccine
status.
And the rest are among people who have one dose of the recommended two doses of the vaccine.
But there haven't been any documented cases as of now among people who have had both recommended
(18:00):
doses of MMR vaccine.
Vaccines are so effective.
And like we talked about, when you complete the two vaccine series, it provides immunity
in 99% of people.
And it's concerning right now because measles is so contagious.
And there's this big period of time where you don't know that you're sick, that measles
can continue spreading.
(18:21):
So if we have these 90 known cases right now, how many unknown cases are in that region?
We don't know yet.
And that there's also the potential for people to travel in and out of that region and spread
it even further.
So we'll be watching closely and we'll kind of see how this outbreak unfolds.
There's concerns that it's going to get significantly worse before it gets better.
(18:45):
When living in New York in 2019, I remember how rapidly and how exponentially these cases
grew.
So it is something that I'm worried about.
There was a whole 2015 outbreak linked to Disney World.
And so if one person goes to a place where people travel from, it's concerning that you
could spread quickly, widely, broadly.
(19:11):
So we wanted to end today's episode with a couple tips on how to keep yourself and your
family safe.
And we recommend discussing all of these with your doctor.
In general, a place to start is knowing your vaccine status.
Have you and your family members been vaccinated against MMR?
Sometimes it's hard to have your vaccine records from when you were young.
(19:31):
Maybe you've immigrated or your family's moved, so you're not sure.
And if you're not sure, you can talk to your doctor and people do what's called a titer
where they draw your antibody level to see if you have immunity against certain illnesses,
including measles.
You can also just get a vaccine.
Vaccines are widely available, including at most pharmacies.
(19:52):
You can make an appointment for like a clinic.
Vaccines are typically covered by insurance.
But if you don't have insurance, or if for some reason your insurance isn't covering
it, they're typically about $100.
Another great place to go can be your local Department of Health, and they typically are
free.
And children are the most vulnerable.
The vaccine is typically given around 12 months of age and the second dose at four to six
(20:16):
years.
If you live near one of these places where outbreaks are happening, or if you're going
to be traveling, it's important to ensure that the vaccines are being done on schedule.
And that's something that you can talk about with your doctor.
You can actually get the MMR vaccine as young as six months.
And so if you are near one of these areas, if you're traveling, if you're concerned,
(20:41):
you can talk to your pediatrician and see if you can get it early.
And similarly, boosters can be given to people.
So maybe it's been a long time since you've been vaccinated.
Typically boosters are recommended for anyone vaccinated before 1968.
But if you're not sure, talk to your doctor and see whether that's an option for you.
Because as we start to see measles spreading in this region and the potential for it to
(21:02):
spread elsewhere, it's important to make sure that you and your family have the level of
protection that's right for you.
So for updates on this outbreak, there's a few different places that you can get information.
It appears that the CDC website on measles is beginning to update those numbers again.
As of February 21st, the CDC has said that they will update the page every Friday.
(21:27):
So we will see if that happens.
And the Texas Department of Health is also providing updated numbers pretty regularly.
But those are going to be focused on the cases in Texas.
And they won't include spread to neighboring states like New Mexico.
It also won't follow different outbreaks.
And in 2025 alone, we've seen five other states outside of New Mexico and Texas affected.
(21:48):
So widespread problem.
I feel like we're always bringing really positive health updates here.
But this is where we are right now, that there are these outbreaks happening and they're
affecting families in this country right now.
Thank you for tuning in.
This is the Rolin Forward podcast.
(22:09):
I'm Dr. Alicia Rolin
I'm Dr. Stephanie Rolin.
And if you like this podcast, tell a friend.
Maybe something comes up during a conversation.
You guys are casually chatting by the water cooler and measles comes up.
We're special education programs.
And so you want to share what our podcast is about.
So we would love that word of mouth really helps us spread towards new interested listeners.
(22:33):
And we have listeners in Texas where this is particularly relevant.
As well as Washington, DC, upstate New York throughout the country.
And we thank you for tuning in and listening with us.
You can always email us at Roland Forward Show.
R-O-L-I-N Forward Show at gmail.com.
(22:53):
And follow along with us on social media.
Thank you for your time today.
Until next time.
Sorry, I have the hiccups.
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