UNITED STATES – After confirmed measles cases in the U.S. fell to just 100 in 1999, health officials declared the disease eliminated from the country. As vaccination rates have declined, measles has again been able to spread more easily among the population. There were more than 2,288 cases of measles in 2025, and 2026 is already nearing that number, with more than 2,000 reported cases. The U.S.’ measles elimination status is set to be reviewed in November.
Elimination status is based on whether measles is endemic, meaning that it is consistently transmitted within the population. Since measles was first eliminated, some people have caught the disease abroad and spread it after returning to the U.S., but outbreaks did not spread very far or last very long. So much of the population was vaccinated that there were not enough vulnerable people for the disease to infect. The rapidly climbing figures indicate that this has changed, and measles is spreading within the country.
To prevent measles from becoming endemic, about 95% of the population needs to be immune. The national rate for kindergartners is now 92.5%, and in some states, such as Idaho, as many as 21.5% of kindergartners do not have measles vaccination records. Vaccination rates have been declining for several years, after the pandemic proved to be a catalyst for the social forces that drive people to be hesitant to vaccinate their children.
Medical misinformation that attributes a variety of health issues to vaccines was able to spread alongside the misleading narrative that the COVID-19 vaccine was untested and particularly dangerous. The worsening conditions of the country’s working class have led to rising barriers to quality health care, meaning more people are either unable to discuss their concerns with a trusted doctor or unable to access vaccines at all. More recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed health and human services secretary despite a history of comments spreading baseless concerns about vaccines and other public health measures.
Distrust of the U.S. health care system does not come only from conspiracy theories and misinformation. Under Capitalism, especially where it is privatized, health care is like any other industry. Its need to generate profit comes before anything else, even the public’s health. In such a system, people frequently need to be wary to ensure their needs are met and that they are not harmed. Oppression that exists in society also does not disappear in medical settings. For example, this is a system that has historically experimented on New Afrikan people without their consent, and in which bias against national minorities still results in slower diagnosis and worse outcomes.
The inevitable result of a medical system that exists to sell products and services rather than to treat the unwell is death. The high number of cases in 2025 includes three people who died from the disease, all unvaccinated. They were the first measles deaths in the U.S. in more than a decade. Two were children.
[Featured Image: States that have reported measles cases this year, with current outbreaks pinpointed in green. The graph shows the change in total cases annually since 2010. Source: Direct Relief]
