America’s Measles Comeback: When Misinformation Becomes Deadly

Measles, a disease once wiped out in America, is back. And experts warn it's not the harmless childhood rash many people remember. According to the center for Disease Control data, more than 1500 measles cases have been reported in 2025, the highest total since the disease was declared eliminated back in 2000. The largest outbreak is in Texas, with more than 800 infections and two unvaccinated child deaths. That's right, actual death. It's not just a cute little thing where you have spots on your face. Health officials say nine out of 10 cases involve unvaccinated people. Many forget measles can cause pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling, deafness, and even death. About 1 in 1,000 US children with measles die from complications. The vaccine, introduced in the 1960s, saved millions worldwide. But now, with vaccination rates slipping below herd immunity, doctors warn old diseases don't stay gone when people stop believing in science. What's the real message here? Children are dying in America because of measles and because of the attitude that I've done my own research and I don't want vaccines. Vaccines prevent measles. Sorry if you don't want to hear that. Sorry if you want to go to some obscure website that would rather sell you shark cartilage. But if you don't want your kid to have measles and die from measles, get a measles vaccine. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. Obviously, this is a charged issue and a controversial issue in the last five years in the United States and other countries has not really been that controversial until the last five years. But here's what people forget. They always say, oh, I'm going to do my own research, and I don't trust experts. Well, if you're listening to someone telling you, don't take a measles vaccine, you are listening to someone that you at least perceive as having more expertise than you. So everyone does listen to experts, whether they want to admit it or not. Now, let's look at some of the facts here again, 20, 25, 1500 cases of measles, which had essentially in the United states, highest in 25 years. It had essentially been eliminated because in the year 2000, the year George W. Bush got elected president, people actually believed in measles vaccines. They don't now. In Texas alone, two children died this year from measles. So this is death on the hands of people spreading this idea that measles vaccines are really not very good for you. When it comes to people in kindergarten, we've gone from 95.2% kindergarteners getting the vaccine down to 92% in just a few years. And most scientists agree you need 95% coverage to create herd immunity. There was a record low in 2004, only 37 cases in the entire country. But now it is back. Let's look at the bigger picture when it comes to vaccines. Now there I have advisors saying, well TJ don't talk about vaccines. YouTube and other social media, they don't like it, they're going to de escalate your content. It's just too important to ignore. It is too important to ignore. We have to talk about this. Wow, I just did something to my computer. I don't know if I went dark or not. I accidentally gestured. There we go. We are back. Let's look at the facts regarding vaccines in general. According to medical officials, 57 million from these lives have been saved from measles vaccine. 154 million from all vaccines since 1970. Let's step back even further when let's look at life expectancy in 1900. Before vaccines were prevalent, the average person died at age 32. Around the world today, the average age is 70. I mean, I just don't know what's more compelling to would you like to die at 32 or would you like to live more than twice as long if you get a shot? To me that is a pretty clear cut value proposition. There are not many things in life where you can be told do this one thing and earn another 38 years of life. I find that a pretty compelling argument, but that's just me. What do you think? This is a tough issue to talk about with family and friends because people who think this is awful and it's all a conspiracy, very emotional. And you know, I'm emotional too about 154 million people who would have died without vaccines. I'm fairly emotional too about not wanting to die at age 32. Thankfully, I know I'm not going to die at age 32 because that happened 30 years ago for me. So all you can really do if you're not a public official, you can vote for public officials who actually believe in not slaughtering hundreds of millions of people which what you're essentially doing if you know there's a simple cure for something, a preventative measure and you don't advocate it and in your own life get vaccinated, that's really all you can do. I better stop talking about this now or certain algorithms will push me off social media because this unfortunately has become a contentious, contentious issue.