The Fall and Rise of Measles

In 2000, more than three decades after the first widespread measles vaccination campaign, the United States declared that it had eliminated the disease. But this stunning achievement had already laid the groundwork for millions of Americans to stop doing the thing that had made it possible. As a New York Times column from that same year noted, “Most parents now raising questions about the safety and wisdom of childhood immunizations have never seen a case of whooping cough, polio, measles, or mumps … Few such parents realize that small children can die or become brain-damaged from a measles infection.” Twenty-six years later, the effects of vaccine skepticism are coming tragically back into view. In this collection, we look at the successes and failures in Americans’ efforts to eradicate a disease that spread through the Americas like wildfire after the first Europeans set foot in the hemisphere.

This collection was featured in Continuum, the joint newsletter of Bunk and HNN, on March 5, 2026: https://tinyurl.com/Continuum3-5-26