Leacsaidh Marlow
In the wake of current measles outbreaks in the US, Impact’s Leacsaidh Marlow explores the case details, and the wider atmosphere of scientific distrust being purveyed by the Trump administration…
The CDC has reported that as of April 17th there have been 800 reported measles cases in the US across 25 states. By April there have been 10 reported outbreaks thus far, to which 94% cases can be attributed. This is compared to 16 total outbreaks for the whole of 2024, spanning only 285 cases. So far 85 people have been hospitalised and 2 of these are reported to have died, with the majority of hospitalisations being children aged 5 or younger. Of the 800 confirmed cases, 96% of these occurred in individuals who were unvaccinated against measles (had not received their MMR vaccine).
Antibiotics are no use against measles and steroids have no proven effectiveness, potentially even worsening cases – the only strong treatment is mitigation by vaccination, hence the existence of global vaccination programs against the virus.
In late March, the Trump administration announced termination of funding for infectious disease detection and tracking, as well as interventions such as testing and vaccinations. Many jobs have also been removed in the healthcare and infectious disease field, including many in the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) in a restructuring of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The US is already seeing, and will continue to feel, the extensive effects of such devastating funding cuts. COVID-19 elucidated the obvious need for effective infectious disease management, and the very real dangers of insufficient preparation and lacking integration of scientific expertise into government strategy.
A worrying picture of the future of infectious disease control
The administration has requested an investigation into the links between vaccination and autism development, simultaneously cutting funding for studies related to vaccine hesitancy. In 1998 Andrew Wakefield, a then-physician, published a fraudulent paper that heavily implied a clinical link between the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine and autism. Wakefield’s paper was subsequently proven to be false, with multiple verified studies entirely disproving his claims, and he was struck off the medical register for ‘serious professional misconduct’. It wasn’t until 2010, 12 years after his publication in Lancet, that he was found guilty of misconduct by the General Medical Council, following an investigation by journalist Brian Deer that revealed Wakefield had undisclosed financial conflicts of interest. Legally, a British court has upheld that “[t]here is now no respectable body of opinion which supports [Wakefield’s] hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked”. But his anti-vaccine activism was not quelled fast enough; by the time his postulation was disproven, the publicity he had gained had already caused irrevocable damage – sparking steep declines in vaccine uptake, causing multiple outbreaks of measles, and numerous deaths worldwide.
Science will always be political
The investigation that Trump has ordered will water the seeds of doubt that the Wakefield saga has already placed in the minds of thousands. This current outbreak, paired with obvious increases in the incidence of measles both in the US and globally over recent years, and dangerous political attitudes to infection management, paints a worrying picture of the future of infectious disease control. Vaccine hesitancy is likely to soar in the wake of Trump and Kennedy’s public attitudes to vaccination, and the stripping down of governmental funding for vaccination programs and localised disease testing. With the fire being further stoked by Trump’s ordered investigation into the link between the MMR vaccine and autism (a link already thoroughly scientifically proven to be nonexistent), the US is almost definitely going to see a reduction in vaccine uptake.
Furthermore, with the US as a scientific research superpower, any significant changes of direction or focus in their research, particularly if spurred on and guided by political motivations, will set a dangerous precedent for other research capitals across the globe. These recent changes serve as a blatant reminder that science will always be political and, factual or not, scientific information and research can be twisted in any number of ways to serve an individual’s political agenda. The US is entering a dangerous age where politicians are playing fast and loose with epidemic control – one that will undoubtedly affect global health extensively.
Leacsaidh Marlow
Featured image courtesy of National Cancer Institute via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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