The U.S. is experiencing the largest outbreak of measles in 35 years. Here’s what you need to know in the D.C. region

The U.S. is currently experiencing a 35-year high in measles cases. This comes over 25 years after the disease was largely considered eliminated by the medical community. There are scattered cases in D.C. in Maryland and more than 100 in Virginia. So what can you do? to stop the spread. Dr. George Benjamin Netanyahu is the CEO of the American Public Health Association, and he joins us now to break down the outbreak. Dr. Benjamin Netanyahu, welcome. Thank you very much for having me. Help our listeners understand what the current outbreak looks like across D.C. Maryland and Virginia and the risk for exposure. Yeah, we've got scattered cases, you know, and they're in the five to ten range, depending on where you are in the region. Most of them have been from people who've gotten infected elsewhere and come here. And that's been historically what we've always had. There are what we call imported cases. But also, they were also people who have all unvaccinated. So they got infected elsewhere because they were not up to date on their shots. And then, of course, expressed their disease here. The challenge is, of course, is that when they come here and they expose others who also may not be vaccinated, then those people either have to be vaccinated, which they should be, or they have to be quarantined for 21 days. So you mentioned that imported cases. So how does that factor into your assessment of the number of cases overall? Well, we've been fortunate in this region that we haven't had that kind of explosive outbreaks that we've had in some of other states. But it's possible because we do have reservoirs of people for a variety of reasons who've chosen not to be vaccinated. Now, all three regions, you know, Maryland, D.C. and Virginia have really strong vaccine laws. But there are opt-outs. Twenty-five years ago, measles... was virtually eradicated in the U.S. If so few cases are, quote, unquote, imported, how did this current outbreak occur? So let's, like, first of all, we had COVID. And doing COVID, a lot of people didn't get to doctor appointments. And so. there was an effort now to catch people up in their shots. And you always see this occur anytime you have people clustered together for a long period of time. And then you see the reemergence of diseases that are preventable because we're not sharing our journeys with one another. And for these vaccine preventable diseases, of course, we're now out and about more. So people are much more likely to share infectious agents amongst themselves. Now, on top of that, Now you have a lot of vaccine skepticism and some people who are anti-vaccine. And so people are not necessarily eager to get their shots and not as eager to get their kids shots. And that's, again, resulted in more and more exposure. But in almost all these cases, these have been communities that are fundamentally unvaccinated or under-vaccinated, meaning they may have gotten one shot but not all of them.

And we know that if you get fully vaccinated for measles, it's 97% protective. Now, once I just said 97%, I did not say 100%. So you always hear these stories of, well, I got my shots, but I still got measles. Yeah, that can happen. But what does happen is you aren't as sick. when you get measles. And I can tell you this is a miserable disease. The Trump administration made significant cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health. What impact are those cuts having on the public health response to the measles outbreak? It is impeding the public health response in a variety of ways. So, for example... They cut billions of dollars just acutely overnight. They said, oh, we're going to take this money that was already distributed to communities. We're going to take it back. And some of those dollars that came from the federal government paid for the salaries of people in our local communities. What happens when your federal money goes away? You get a stop work order right then, and you lose your job often right then. So in Texas, when they had that outbreak over a year ago, we had people that simply were in the middle of the measles outbreak, went home. In addition, what they've done, particularly because of the... attitude of the Secretary of Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.., who's a well-known vaccine skeptic, and he has created an environment of fear where people are afraid and not quite sure what to do. I mean, normally we would be having... weekly calls, all the local health departments, all the state health department. We'll be talking to the CDC weekly. There would be radio and TV ads about getting your vaccines. We would have aggressive vaccine programs to vaccinate people around these outbreaks. And the money and the staff cuts have created basically an infrastructure problem that has made these outbreaks. more likely to fester, larger than they need to be, and, of course, more people are getting sick. President Trump just signed an executive order this week, recommending physicians administer vaccinations against measles, mumps, and rubella, also known as the MMR vaccine, at three different times with three different shots. Separate vaccines for... for use in children are not currently available in the U.S. How concerned are you about the impact of this kind of policy on the already growing number of cases of measles? You know, one of the things I learned earlier in medicine is that we shouldn't do stupid stuff. That's a truism in medicine. People should take that to heart. You know...

To say you're worried about kids and the number of shots they're getting and then tell them instead of getting one shot, they now have to get three, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you're a parent, we all, I had two kids and I have grandkids, and I know what the work is to get off work. to take them to the doctor's office, and to get them their vaccinations. And the problem is it's more burdensome to the parents, and it can be more costly. And the kids are now got to get more shots under this recommendation, which, by the way, there is no scientific evidence about doing this and splitting these shots up. In fact, the whole press conference was full of misinformation and disinformation. And I encourage people to ignore what the president said, ignore the executive order, and follow the advice of your doctor. What can people do to be vigilant and proactive against the spread besides listening to their physician or their doctor? Well, I think, first of all, you should do your homework. And also, I always say that even for me, people should Google me, Google the source, Google the information, trust but verify, as they say. Learn what these vaccines do. One of the reasons that we're not seeing vaccine preventable diseases today is because of the vaccines. You know, when I was a kid, I'm 73 now, but when I was a kid, measles was around, I knew kids, friends of mine who were out because of measles. We have pediatricians today that haven't ever seen measles. We have family physicians today who have never seen a case of measles. And if there is a case of measles on the ward, it is a classic case and everybody puts on the mask and goes in to see it because it is a something you just don't see. And that's because of vaccines. And that vaccines are so successful. They are safe. They are effective. And measles, by the way, is one of the most infectious agents that we have. And the vaccine is among the most effective vaccines that we have. That is Dr. George Benjamin Netanyahu. He's CEO of American Public Health Association. Dr. Benjamin Netanyahu, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. Thank you very much.