{"id":298111,"date":"2026-10-02T04:22:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T04:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/298111\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T04:22:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T04:22:19","slug":"measles-outbreak-in-pennsylvania-highlights-vaccine-skepticism-and-public-health-trust-washington-d-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/298111\/","title":{"rendered":"Measles Outbreak in Pennsylvania Highlights Vaccine Skepticism and Public Health Trust | Washington D.C."},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014\u00a0A growing measles outbreak in Pennsylvania is putting the spotlight on vaccine skepticism and trust, or a lack thereof, in public health guidance.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania has seen 119 new cases in the past week\u00a0alone,\u00a0nearly one-third of the almost 1,000 total cases are individuals under the age of 18. Out of\u00a0nearly 3,700\u00a0reported measles cases nationwide, 943 are in Pennsylvania \u2014 the most in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Five measles-related deaths have been reported by the\u00a0state\u2019s health department.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire Shapiro administration from the governor down is taking Pennsylvania\u2019s measles outbreak seriously,\u201d said Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen in a video from Sept. 11.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the largest and deadliest outbreak in Pennsylvania in 35 years and in the United States for that amount of time,\u201d said Dr. Tyler Evans, an adult infectious diseases and addiction medicine specialist and the CEO and founder of Wellness Equity Alliance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to new bipartisan polling commissioned by the Partnership to Fight Infectious Disease<\/a>\u00a0(PFID), surveying more than 1,000 voters\u2019 views on vaccines, 89% said vaccines are essential for public health. However, 60% believe confusion around recommendations from the federal government is\u00a0impacting\u00a0vaccination rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do have some high-profile people speaking out against the concept of vaccination, and that\u00a0has been, in my opinion, harmful,\u201d said Dr. Michael Burgess, a former Republican\u00a0congressman\u00a0from North Texas as well as a physician and obstetrician. \u201cThe fact\u00a0remains\u00a0is that measles is a highly contagious illness. And if you are not vaccinated, the risk that you may become unintentionally exposed is quite high, because unfortunately, the person who has measles, who is exposing people may not know that for four days before symptoms appear.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really\u00a0should\u2019ve\u00a0never\u00a0been about politics.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0really more\u00a0biology and medicine,\u201d said Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. \u201cAs a father,\u00a0all of\u00a0my children and\u00a0all of\u00a0my family, including myself, are fully vaccinated. And I strongly believe in that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The recent outbreak in Sen. John Fetterman\u2019s state is especially visible in close-knit communities with lower vaccination rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0troubling. But overall, it\u00a0seems to be primarily\u00a0the Amish communities within Lancaster County,\u201d said Fetterman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u00a0are\u00a0sort of challenges with respect to getting vaccinations or general health care to some of those communities,\u201d said Dr. Evans, the author of\u00a0Pandemics, Poverty, and Politics.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Evans says the best tool to fight the outbreak is with the full two doses of the MMR vaccine, which is\u00a097% effective at preventing measles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But trust\u00a0remains\u00a0complicated, especially when it comes to preventing something that many have never seen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMeasles\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0real, right, to a lot of people. Measles is\u00a0this\u00a0abstract disease that people\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0hear about.\u00a0It\u00a0existed in\u00a0like the 19th or early 20th century,\u201d said Dr. Evans. \u201cAnd so, prevention is really hard to sell to people, and especially now that it\u2019s become so politically divided.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMMR vaccine has been around since the early 1960s.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0been around so long, people\u00a0have\u00a0kind of forgotten\u00a0these diseases because no one has them anymore,\u201d said Dr. Burgess.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0former Republican\u00a0congressman\u00a0stresses to trust professionals who know your family\u2019s health the best.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get your health information from the television.\u00a0Don\u2019t\u00a0get your health information from a press conference. Get your health information from your doctor. Your doctor knows you best. Your doctor knows your child best,\u201d said Dr. Burgess.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Evans said the cases of people who have\u00a0actually been\u00a0infected, particularly those who have been hospitalized,\u00a0are\u00a0fewer than 1% were in the fully vaccinated individuals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is this is almost purely a sort of a case of people not getting vaccinated for something that is very much\u00a0preventable,\u201d said Dr. Evans.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014\u00a0A growing measles outbreak in Pennsylvania is putting the spotlight on vaccine skepticism and trust, or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2288,28,30,29,2287,2286,2289],"class_list":["post-298111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bureau","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-u-s-capitol","tag-washington-d-c","tag-washington-d-c-bureau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}