Get Your Shot Before the Out-of-Control Texas Measles Outbreak Arrives in Arizona

At the moment, there are no confirmed measles cases in Arizona. But that may not last as the Texas measles outbreak — only 600 miles away from Tucson — explodes out of control.

Measles is the most contagious pathogen — 7 times more infectious than Covid. It is so contagious that in 1991, a single athlete with measles in a sports stadium infected 16 other people, including two sitting 30 yards away.

“There are places here where it could spin out of control, just like it has in Texas. The conditions are right here for that to happen in some parts of the state,” said Arizona Public Health Association executive director Will Humble.

Accelerating the outbreak is the indifferent response from the Trump oligarchy — hampered by vaccine skepticism, massive funding cuts, and staff cuts in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

It’s the worst measles outbreak in Texas in 30 years, where two unvaccinated children have died from measles. The disease also causes a high fever, mouth ulcers, a painful rash, ear infections, difficulty speaking, lung failure, blindness and hearing loss. Measles also wipes out antibodies that fight other diseases.

In only 63 days, measles cases in Texas shot up to 505 cases, and it has spread to New Mexico, which now has 56 cases, and Oklahoma. The national total is more than 600 cases in 21 states. There is no cure for measles.

“I think it could get to thousands and thousands of cases,” says virologist Paul Offit at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.

Arizona is vulnerable

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that seniors, especially people born before 1957, consider getting the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.

Children should get the vaccine at 12 through 15 months old and the second dose at 4 through 6 years old. Some 89.9% of Arizona kindergarteners received two doses of the MMR vaccine in the 2023-24 school year, which is lower than the national rate of 92.7%. The threat of measles is greatest in Gila, Mohave, Navajo, and Yavapai counties.

Yet Republican Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — a notorious anti-vaxxer — has shut his eyes to the epidemic. He pretended to care by visiting Texas last week for a photo op. He weakly recommended the MMR vaccine but posted on X the same day to support budesonide and clarithromycin — neither of which is a treatment for measles. He has also promoted cod liver oil, steroids and antibiotics — none of which is effective against measles.

Kennedy announced cuts to one-fourth of the HHS workforce, including one-fifth of those employed by the CDC. HHS also clawed back $11 billion in funding from local health departments that deal with the spread of measles.

Vaccines opposed in Texas

Texas is an anti-vaccine state. Republican governor Greg Abbott banned the Covid vaccine mandate in 2023 and has failed to recommend the MMR vaccine. Astonishingly, two Republican legislators, Dustin Burrows and Ken King, who represent the counties where measles is running wild, introduced laws to expand vaccine exemptions, leading to more children dying.

When the first unvaccinated school-aged child died of measles in Texas in February, it was the first measles death in a decade in the US.