Should You Fear the Measles Outbreak?
Should we fear the measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico? First, why do we fear things? We fear things that may have a bad ending. If that were the only requirement, we would fear most things, as most things can potentially end badly. The bigger question is, how often does something end badly? To put fear in perspective, you have to put numbers in perspective.
Measles Numbers 2024-2025
First, few people get measles, and even fewer die from it. Getting measles is not a death sentence like HIV was in the 1980s. In 2024, there were 285 cases of measles in the U.S, which had a population of 343 million in 2025 and 340 million in 2024. Measles is typically considered a childhood illness. Of those 285 measles cases in 2024, 120 were in children under age 5. Of the 285 cases of measles in 2024, there were two deaths. Two measles deaths in a population of 340 million. Those deaths represent the first measles deaths since 2015.
We don’t know anything about these two individuals who died or the 285 who contracted measles in 2024. Were they in good health? Were they properly nourished? Did they come from third-world countries?
We know from the early 1900s that death rates for all infectious diseases declined as a result of improvements in clean water and sanitation. As you can see from the graph below, the measles deaths (green line) bottomed out by the early 1960s before mass vaccination programs were instituted. Improvements in sanitation and chlorinated water occurred from 1900 to 1940.
Measles Outbreak in 2024
Therefore, 0.00000059% of the U.S. population died of measles in 2024. Let’s now zero in on the death rate of those who had measles. The death rate among those with measles is one per 142.5 or 2 per 285. In percent form, that is 0.7%. Depending on your perspective, these numbers may or may not be significant or concern you, but at least you now have more information to put whatever fear you may have had of measles in perspective.
Fear is related to perspective.
Measles Outbreak in 2025
In 2025, there was one measles death over the first 143 cases, essentially identical to 2024. As of April 17, 2025, there have been three deaths in 884 cases, or 0.34%. Again, we don’t know how healthy these individuals who got measles and died from it are. Many of these cases are in Texas and New Mexico, which are border states. Is this measles outbreak related to the disease being brought over from border crossings? We know that cases of TB in Clark County, Ohio, have quadrupled since Haitians settled in the area. Might something similar be going on with the measles outbreak?
There was a time in our country’s history when those coming from other countries were examined by U.S. physicians before being allowed entry into the country. They were quarantined if found to have a communicable disease. This processing and examination process is depicted in the movie The Godfather, Part 2, and the television series 1923, Season 2, episode 3.
Should you fear the measles outbreak? You should fear dying from lightning and the flu more than measles.
Deaths from Lightning Strikes
According to the CDC, there were 444 deaths from lightning strikes between 2006 to 2021, approximately 30 deaths per year.
Flu Deaths in 2025
As of May 2, 2025, 216 have died from the flu, the highest in 15 years. Interestingly, a Cleveland Clinic study on 53,000 of its employees showed that those employees vaccinated for the flu were 27% more likely to get the flu than the unvaccinated.
Natural Infection with Measles Provides Protection
Believe it or not, there are actual benefits from being naturally infected with some of the viruses we try so hard to vaccinate against. Before discussing the benefits of contracting measles through natural infection, it is worth noting that measles is a known side effect listed on the MMR Vaccine product label.
Interestingly, as published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, most cases of the measles outbreak in California in 2015 were from the MMR vaccine.
Multiple studies show that those who contract measles naturally have a reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, and Parkinson’s disease.
- Febrile infectious childhood diseases in the history of cancer patients and matched controls. Medical Hypotheses, 1998
- Do childhood diseases affect NHL and HL risk? A case-control study from northern and southern Italy. Leukaemia Research, 2006
- Risk factors for Hodgkin’s disease by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) status: prior infection by EBV and other agents. British Journal of Cancer, 2011
- Measles to the Rescue: A Review of Oncolytic Measles Virus. Viruses, 2016
- Exposure to childhood infections and risk of Epstein-Barr virus–defined Hodgkin’s lymphoma in women. International Journal of Cancer, 2005
- Measles virus for cancer therapy. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology, 2009
- Febrile infectious childhood diseases in the history of cancer patients and matched controls. Medical Hypotheses, 1998
- The number of FICD decreased the cancer risk, in particular for non-breast cancers.
- Measles infection and Parkinson’s disease. American Journal of Epidemiology, 1985
- There is evidence for a protective effect of measles, compatible with some complex interaction between the measles virus and the virus of the 1918 influenza epidemic.
- Infantile Hodgkin’s disease: remission after measles. British Medical Journal, 1973
The question becomes, why is there reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, and Parkinson’s among those who have immunity to measles and other childhood infections from natural infection compared to those who have received vaccinations?
There are three possibilities.
- Immunity from infection may produce a more robust immune response that lowers the risk of cancer, heart disease, and Parkinson’s.
- Immunity from infection may not reduce the incidence, but rather vaccination increases the risk, likely due to ingredients found in vaccines. An article on vaccine ingredients will be written in the future on this website.
- Some combination of both is at play.
Historical Perspective
My parents were born in 1925 and 1926. My mother received a smallpox vaccine. I don’t believe my father received any vaccines. I was born in 1960 (my parents were old parents at the time, at age 34 and 35 when I was born. Most of my friends’ parents were 8 to 10 years younger than mine. I was part of that first wave that received vaccines following the passage of the Vaccine Assistance Act in 1962,
During my early childhood, I lived in post post-World War II bungalow neighborhood. Two boys my age lived in the neighborhood: Brian lived about 8 houses up the street, and Chucky lived about 15 houses down the street. One day, my mom said, “Guess what? You are going to visit Brian today, and you will play with him all day.” I went to Brian’s house only to find him full of red spots all over his body. Shortly thereafter, I got red spots. Then my mom said, “Guess what? Chucky is coming over today and will play with you all day.” Guess what happened to Chucky? He got red spots, too.
That is how we got “vaccinated” in those days. We did not run from these childhood diseases. To some degree, we ran towards them and got them over as quickly as possible. More people will die from lightning strikes each year than from measles, to put that in perspective.
I remember my mom questioning the need for the MMR vaccine, which first came out in 1971, since I already had the mumps and measles. If I already have immunity, why would I need the vaccine, though I ended up getting it.
Now, here is what happened. My generation has kids, and during that time, more and more vaccines were introduced. At some point, much of society just accepts that getting vaccines is the norm and never questions their usefulness or cumulative safety. Then our kids started to have kids, and then even more vaccines are recommended, and we are now at a point where we try to vaccinate for everything, but immunity via vaccine is not a robust as immunity from infection, and immunity from infection is associated with a lower risk of cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease
There was far more questioning of vaccines by my parents’ generation than by subsequent generations. We have accepted that vaccinations as something you simply do.
