The U.S. is in the grips of a historic measles surge, with more than 3,000 measles cases reported in 45 states across the country since the start of 2025. So far, two unvaccinated children have died from the disease. At least 920 people have been infected in South Carolina, and a similar number in Texas. In both states, nearly all infected individuals were unvaccinated.
Now Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is urging Americans to get the measles vaccine as the country is on the brink of losing its measles elimination status.
“Take the vaccine, please. We have a solution for our problem,” Oz said on CNN’s State of Union on Sunday. “Not all illnesses are equally dangerous, and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses. But measles is one you should get your vaccine [for],” Oz said.
It’s like all these things - I’ve had people tell me climate change won’t amount to anything because “look at the hole in the ozone layer, it just went away”. It went away because we did something about it! Same with the millennium bug. People worked round the clock fixing it before it was too late.
The ozone hole has not disappeared. It is shrinking, but there is also a new threat to the ozone layer: the large wild fires are a major problem.
It’s not a crisis that features on front pages though, and the main drivers at the time were identified and eliminated (Montreal protocol). I didn’t know wildfires had an effect, that’s interesting, and worrying.