In the years before the introduction of the measles vaccine, the disease infected more than half a million people and killed hundreds of children each year in the United States alone.¹ After the approval of the vaccine in the 1960s, these numbers dropped precipitously and in 2000, the World Health Organization declared that measles had officially been eliminated from the country.

But in late January 2025, a measles outbreak erupted in Gaines County, Texas. Within weeks, it had spread across state lines to New Mexico and Oklahoma, sickening nearly 300 people. Two deaths have been reported so far—the first measles deaths in the US in a decade.

Read more at The Scientist.

The measles outbreak continues to spread in areas of west Texas and New Mexico and has now reached several other states, including Pennsylvania, California and Oklahoma.

So far in 2025, more than 250 measles cases have been reported across multiple states, resulting in two confirmed deaths, including that of an unvaccinated child – the first death from measles in the US in a decade.

This comes as Robert F Kennedy Jr, the top US health official, continued to sow mistrust about vaccines this week, claiming in an interview on Fox News that, among other things, the measles vaccine “causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause[s]”. These comments arose despite research showing that the side-effects of the measles vaccine are far less serious than those associated with the virus itself.

Read more at The Guardian.

Denver Health will soon host mass vaccination clinics for the measles virus through its school-based health centers (SBHC) in Denver Public Schools.

This comes as outbreaks of the highly contagious disease are being reported in nearby Texas and New Mexico.

“Because it’s so contagious, it tends to infect pretty much everyone who might be vulnerable to it, and it can lead to really dire complications, including pneumonia and swelling of the brain,” explained Joseph Rosas, a physician assistant with the Denver Health’s School-based Health Centers (SBHC).

Read more at Denver 7.

Chris Riley’s symptoms started in the summer of 2021. At first, he didn’t think much about them. His throat felt a little sore, and he noticed hardening of his lymph nodes. At 57 years old, Riley was active and healthy. He biked everywhere and didn’t even own a car.

Riley, it turned out, had oropharyngeal cancer, which develops in the tonsils or throat. In Riley’s case, it had originated in his left tonsil, but by the time it was discovered — after visits to a dentist, a general practitioner, and an ear, nose and throat specialist — it had spread to his lymph nodes.

Read more at NPR.

Colorado has not recorded a case of measles this year, according to the state health department, but officials believe it may only be a matter of time.

A total of 222 measles cases were reported by 12 states, as of March 6, 2025, according to the CDC: Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington. 

Two more cases popped up in nearby Oklahoma on Tuesday. In all of 2024, the U.S. recorded 285 cases.

Measles is a highly contagious, airborne, respiratory infection, perhaps best known for its rash and fever, which can cause serious health problems, especially for children under the age of 5.

Read more at CPR.

An adult who was infected with measles has died in New Mexico, state health officials announced Thursday, though the virus has not been confirmed as the cause of death.

The person who died had been unvaccinated and did not seek medical care, a state health department spokesperson said in a statement. The person’s exact age and other details were not immediately released.

Read more at The Guardian.

It’s been a brutal flu season. Rates of hospitalizations and outpatient visits for influenza are at a 15-year high, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The season got off to a typical, relatively late start, but the CDC has now classified it as “high severity.” And as measured by outpatient visits for flulike symptoms, the level of illness in the U.S. has been comparable to that of the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic.

Kids have been hit especially hard: as of February 22, 98 children—most of them unvaccinated—have died from flu in the U.S. this season. There has also been an increase in severe neurological complications in kids, including seizures, hallucinations and other symptoms.

Read more at Scientific American.

As measles spreads in Texas, New Mexico, and other states, a Texas child died from measles for the first time in the United States since 2015. In a March 2 Fox News editorial, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hinted at the importance of vaccination and stated that good nutrition, including vitamin A, is a “best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses.”

However, doctors and public health professionals say that vitamin A is not a replacement for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Vitamin A is sometimes used to treat measles in the hospital—particularly in developing countries where people with poor nutrition tend to be vitamin A deficient. Experts also say that taking vitamin A when your body does not need it can be dangerous. 

Read more at Public Good News.

In the 19th century, it was incredibly dangerous to be a child.

As of 1900, about 18 percent, or nearly one in five, American children died before their fifth birthday. The most common causes were infectious diseases — pneumonia, diphtheria, dysentery, measles, and other illnesses ran rampant through households, and children were especially at risk.

Cities, in particular, were “cauldrons of infection,” Samuel Preston, a demographer and co-author of the book Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Century America, told me. But around the country, communicable diseases were “rites of passage of childhood, some of them far worse than others, but all of them causing serious morbidity, and a lot of them causing death,” said Howard Markel, a historian of medicine who has studied epidemics.

Read more at Vox.

The Texas measles outbreak has drawn renewed attention to declining vaccination rates nationwide, and Coloradans should be among the most concerned.

With some of the lowest kindergarten immunization rates in the country and a long-standing reluctance from elected leaders to act with a sense of urgency to create stronger immunization policies, our state is particularly vulnerable to a preventable public health crisis.

Despite pressing warnings from public health officials, attempts to strengthen Colorado’s vaccine policies have repeatedly stalled in the face of political opposition. In 2019, amid ongoing efforts to strengthen school-entry immunization requirements, Gov. Jared Polis took a strong stance against House Bill 19-1312, a bill aimed at modernizing vaccine exemption processes and reporting. When asked about the legislation, Polis expressed deep skepticism about government-mandated vaccine requirements, arguing that such measures “infringe on personal freedoms.” Polis’ indication that he would not sign HB-1312 into law would have almost certainly derailed the bill had it not died on the Senate floor before making it to the governor’s desk.

Read more at Colorado Newsline.