Whatever his two options are, he may be open to both of them.
Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things.
Up to three deaths. Another unvaccinated child with no underlying health issues.
A snip:
Before this year, there had only been three measles deaths since 2000 [when measles was declared eliminated in the us]:
2015: A 28-year-old immunocompromised woman in Washington was exposed in a clinic.
2003: A 75-year-old traveler from California with pneumonia. The other was a 13-year-old immunocompromised child (post–bone marrow transplant) living between Illinois and Mexico.
There are the two kids, 6 and 8. Did New Mexico confirm that adult died from measles? I couldn’t find an article saying that.
I didn’t realize the second death was controversial. Someone dies “with measles” due to untreated illness is a measles death in my books. This isn’t like a kid who died in a car crash and happened to test positive for covid.
Given HIPAA and the politics at the moment, i don’t think we’ll hear whether that death is officially confirmed.
I mean, I assume it was measles, but don’t know why they wouldn’t confirm. The Texas Dept of State Health Services confirmed that second kid died of measles, for example. (it’s also not clear to me that the government is proscribed by HIPAA from reporting what they know)
Ah, it’s listed on their measles tracking site as a death in Lea County. There we go.
thanks for finding that. 
I had it when I was 7, my sister was 14. I can attest to what you said. She was much sicker than I was. We caught it from my other sister’s son, he was a toddler at the time and, if I recall correctly, only broke out in a few sores.
I thought RFK went to the funeral? Of course it was measles.
A 2013 study in JAMA showed that the flu vaccine reduces death by cardiovascular events in elderly people by 30%. I wonder if that is really true and why you never hear much about that benefit.
Ontario has over 600 measles cases, so unvaccinated communities are not unique to the United States.
What the hell is wrong with people?
These very childhood diseases were roundly feared a few decades ago.
There should be no questions that no disease is better than a mild case of anything.
20% of measles cases are complicated by another illness since measles weakens and even resets immunity.
Often this is pneumonia. But if it is swelling of the brain, that physical damage won’t be undone by eating a lot of liver and carrots. And between 1 and 3 people will die for every 1000 that get measles, depending on its virulence.
If only…
Next on the comeback trail?
…
Louisiana has had 110 cases of pertussis reported so far this year, the health department said – already approaching the 154 cases reported for all of 2024.Cases are on the rise nationally, too. There were more than 35,000 cases of whooping cough last year in the US, the highest number in more than a decade, and 10 people died — six of them less than 1 year old. Experts say they see peaks and valleys with these kinds of illnesses over the years, but there have been about 6,600 cases already in 2025, almost four times the number at this point last year.
…
Children are recommended to get a dose of the diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis, or DTaP, vaccine at the ages of 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, between 15 to 18 months and again between 4 to 6 years, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adolescents should get a booster with a version of the vaccine called Tdap between age 11 and 12, and adults are urged to get Tdap boosters every 10 years.
Infants too young to be vaccinated are susceptible to the bacteria, which is why officials recommend that pregnant women get the vaccine in their third trimester, so the antibodies will be passed to the newborn. This prevents 78% of pertussis cases in young infants and is 91% effective against hospitalization, the CDC says.
…
Pertussis cases in Louisiana are rising just weeks after the state Department of Health said it was ending vaccine promotion through events like health fairs.
…
My girls had croup one time.
Watching your babies wracked with horrible choking coughing fits are hard to take. It’s viral and self limiting.
Whooping cough( pertussis) is bacterial, longer lasting and bad coughing.
I don’t understand any parent not wanting to prevent their child suffering from this.
Pertussis is a bit more complicated of a story, partly because it has stayed around causing mostly milder disease in adults and older vaccinated children that rarely gets diagnosed throughout.
Our group of five pediatricians have diagnosed more than a dozen cases this past year. One in a non-vaxxer. Others have been up to date with vaccines but waning protection. The last two I diagnosed were fifth graders. One with two weeks of cough and starting to get into spasms of cough. The other her best friend whose cough has just started but knew to come in.
I suspect there is a large group of unvaccinated folk spreading it but it is not the same fairly pure clear story that measles is. And some is no doubt that now that we know it is out there in big numbers we are missing it less.
On the other hand, since whooping cough immunity wanes faster, today’s vaccination incidence matters more. An awful lot of the population was vaccinated against measles when it was a less political thing, and almost all of them are still immune.
I had measles, and mumps, and German Measles. There were no shots for them, in those days. I caught measles at a children’s party, according to my late mother, and she worked out who I caught it from, too. I’m told i was very ill , though I have no recollection of it.
By the time my brother came along, they had a shot for it.
Yup, to the extent that when I went in for a plain Tetanus booster maybe 12-15 years ago, the doctor told me the general recommendation was a TDaP these days because of outbreaks of pertussis at Texas (!) megachurches (involving tons of unvaccinated kids, of course).
I was running errands in Walmart and thought to ask the pharmacist if she had MMR vaccines, and she clasped her hands in a beseeching gesture and said “PLEASE get vaccinated.” So, I’m boosted.
She said all her elderly customers think they can’t get it, or that it won’t come to our neck of the woods.