RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vax Nonsense Has Helped Spread Measles to Mexico

Measles has no cure. This highly contagious disease can cause a rash, conjunctivitis, high fever, white spots inside the mouth, pain throughout the body, pneumonia and severe dehydration, and can lead to hospitalization or even death.

Fortunately, it is highly preventable thanks to a vaccine developed by a few American scientists in 1963. In 1971, researchers created another vaccine that could prevent measles as well as two other contagious diseases – mumps and rubella – thanks to the miraculous advances of modern medicine. The joint injection was called the MMR vaccine, an acronym for “measles, mumps and rubella”.

The decline in herd immunity in the United States is due to a growing movement of anti-vax parents — currently championed at the federal level by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who refuse to offer their children the same public health benefits they enjoyed in their youth, primarily out of fear of completely debunked conspiracy theories that at one time linked autism to the vaccine.