Writing in STAT, Dr. Jewel Mullen, an associate professor at Dell Medical School, recounts being hospitalized for a month in 1961 after a near-fatal measles infection. She was in a coma and had dangerously unstable blood pressure. She says she is speaking out because children who die don't grow up to tell their stories, and because measles is again causing severe illness and death.
Mullen notes that by July 2026 the U.S. had already surpassed the entire 2025 measles case count, and that 2026 has the most cases since 1991. Pennsylvania has reported four measles-related deaths: two children, an 18-year-old, and a 40-year-old. She describes measles as one of the most contagious diseases on Earth, lingering in the air for up to two hours and infecting nine out of ten unprotected people nearby. About one in five unvaccinated patients is hospitalized, and severe cases can lead to pneumonia or brain swelling.
Mullen emphasizes that one dose of the MMR vaccine is 93% effective, two doses are 97% effective, and measles struggles to spread at 95% community vaccination. But U.S. childhood MMR vaccination rates fell to 92.4% in 2025. She argues that the biggest obstacles are often a lack of access to health care, insurance, public health services, and plain-language information, compounded by misinformation and recent federal process changes. She calls for more stories about successful vaccination efforts, stronger advocacy from health professionals, and optimism paired with collective action.