Measles Outbreaks Are The Canaries In The Coal Mine Indicating Something Is Wrong In The World Of Healthcare

Measles is an infectious disease. When I was young, before vaccines against measles existed, I contracted it. I was too young to remember much about being sick for a week or more. I got over it, apparently in about a week, with the rash lasting about a week before fading. Many others, when I was young, didn’t have as easy a time with measles as did I.

In 2023, 10.3 million people caught measles. Until public measles vaccination programs began in 1963, an average of 2.6 million people died annually from the virus, most of them children under the age of five. Fortunately, public vaccination programs have dramatically lowered that number.

For those who contracted measles naturally before vaccines were available, the infection provided lifelong immunity with rare exceptions. Those exceptions produced a condition called immune amnesia, where the body forgets its previously acquired immunity.

The measles virus is particularly good at disrupting lifelong immunity because it can disrupt large numbers of antibodies the body produces to fight infections including those targeting other viruses and bacteria. For those with immune amneisa, fortunately, getting vaccinated can restore their immune memory.

What is measles? It is a respiratory tract infection that affects the entire body with these common symptoms: high fever, cough and a rash. There can be complications such as severe diarrhea and dehydration, ear infections, pneumonia, encephalitis and blindness. A child-bearing woman who gets measles can be in danger as well as her unborn child.

Before vaccines were developed, measles epidemics occurred in two to three-year cycles. With public vaccination programs, the annual deaths, averaging 2.6 million, had dropped to 107,500 by 2023.

The current measles vaccines go by two acronyms, MMR, which stands for three common childhood diseases, measles, mumps and rubella (also known as German measles) and MMRV, with the V standing for varicella, the virus responsible for chickenpox and later, shingles. MMR and MMRV vaccines work in the same way as the annual flu shot, the influenza vaccine that uses attenuated viruses as well. The regimen for giving MMR and MMRV vaccines is two doses, one given at age 12 to 15 months, and the second between ages 4 and 6.

Whether MMR or MMRV, these vaccines use attenuated viruses, in other words, viruses weakened to make them effective enough to stimulate our natural immunity, but too weak to cause infections. The only people who shouldn’t consider being vaccinated are those with existing weakened immune systems.

With mass public inoculation programs to fight measles and other childhood viral diseases, why are we now seeing large outbreaks of measles? The biggest cause is the COVID-19 pandemic, not because COVID can make us more susceptible to measles infections, but because parents have stopped inoculating their children.

Routine public immunization programs delivering MMR and MMRV vaccines have seen a significant drop in the number getting vaccinated. Worldwide, the World Health Organization notes that in 2023, 22 million children did not receive their first measles vaccine. The subsequent rise in measles cases from public vaccination gaps since then is directly related.

In Europe alone, 2024 saw a surge to 127,000 measles cases, with tens of thousands reported so far in 2025. The U.S. and Canada in 2024 had more modest numbers, 285 in the former and 78 confirmed cases in the latter. This year, the U.S. has reported 1,288 confirmed cases as of July 8, 2025, with Canada at 3,170. Why are the Canadian numbers surging compared to those from the U.S? The suspicion is that outbreaks in the U.S. are being under-reported, particularly among religious and rural groups.

Elsewhere, reported measles cases have been on the rise. Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean region reported 20,000 cases in the first half of 2025.  Over 70,000 cases have been reported between December 2024, and June 2025, in Yemen, Pakistan, India, Kyrgyzx\stan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria. The Americas including Canada and the U.S. have reported an 11-fold increase in measles cases in 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.

In Katelyn Jetelina and Kristen Panthagani’s “Your Local Epidemiologist” latest Substack article, these two doctors, who also have PhDs, describe the virus as “a canary in the coal mine,” hence that reference in the title of this posting.

Jetelina and Panthagani state that the reappearance of measles is a signal that something is seriously wrong with U.S. public health, and their concerns are being echoed by many other doctors. They note that, “For those of us in public health and medicine, this outbreak is more than an infectious disease flare-up. It’s a symbol of broken trust, eroded progress, rise of individualism replacing collective good, and a system that is cracking under the weight of disinvestment and distrust.”

It reflects the public loss of confidence in science and medicine despite public warnings by qualified health professionals. Scientific evidence has fallen to opinion. Regaining control of the narrative without being judgmental is what is needed. Meanwhile, the only thing saving the public from this resurgence of measles are the numbers still remain fairly low when compared to what we have witnessed with COVID-19.