Quote :

" Nearly all large U.S. measles outbreaks have involved close-knit, unvaccinated communities ? — that’s been true since elimination in 2000. This cycle fits: the large West Texas outbreak originated in an under-vaccinated Mennonite community ? (2025); South Carolina’s outbreak primarily affected unvaccinated children in an insular religious community in Spartanburg County ? and sickened nearly 1,000 people ?; in Utah, a significant portion of the measles cases have been linked to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) ?; and now Lancaster County, Pa., is at the center of one of the largest measles outbreaks in the country, ? where local Mennonite and Amish communities tend to avoid traditional health care "

8/25/2026 2:03:46 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/well/measles-record-united-states-numbers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8FA.-lVO.D9gaMASKfmca&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Quote :

" Measles Cases Hit New Record in U.S., as Vaccination Rates Wane More measles cases have been reported in the United States in the last two years than in all the years from 2000 through 2024 combined."

probably has everything to do with the well known explosion of the Amish population and nothing at all with the antivaxxers in charge of public health

8/25/2026 2:05:45 PM

^ there is no direct evidence. You can look at the source data. The only documented community to community transmission was mennonites.

Not as fun if you want to j/o in the corner about assumptions though. It's totally possible that happens but every current community is the same type of community that historically has outbreaks: mennonites, LDS, refugees, and Amish.

Vaccination rates drop as TGL refused to look at the direct evidence and makes shit up!

[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 2:12 PM. Reason : It could happen but there is no direct evidence currently ]

8/25/2026 2:10:48 PM

Care to give your theories on why more meales cases have been reported in the last two years than in the previous 24 years combined? What's changed to cause such a drastic increase?

8/25/2026 2:53:47 PM

^Mennonites recently stopped washing their hands.

8/25/2026 4:25:23 PM

Quote :

"It's totally possible that happens but every current community is the same type of community that historically has outbreaks: mennonites, LDS, refugees, and Amish."

How is that relevant as to whether lower vaccination rates are or are not a causal factor?

I mean, that seems perfectly consistent with lower vaccination rates being a causal factor: If the lower rates are a causal factor, wouldn't you expect the groups with the historical outbreaks to be the same groups that also first see increases due to lower vaccination rates?

Just because these groups already have low vaccination rates, that does not imply they won't be affected by lower vaccination rates in their surrounding outsider community. Herd immunity, and all that, right?

8/25/2026 4:35:12 PM

Quote :

"Care to give your theories on why more meales cases have been reported in the last two years than in the previous 24 years combined? What's changed to cause such a drastic increase?"

Would you care to explain why it's always the exact same groups of people that have the drastic increases? Do you think somehow MAHA movement is influencing these groups like Latter Day Saints and Ukrainian immigrants to not get vaccinated?

Quote :

"However, the context notes that measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000 due to previously high vaccination coverage. Historical data indicates that MMR vaccination rates among U.S. children aged 19–35 months were generally above 92% in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with rates fluctuating between 91.5% and 92.3% from 2005–2015. More recent data shows a decline, with national kindergarten MMR coverage falling from 95.2% in 2019–2020 to 92.4% in 2025–2026."

Current rates of measles vaccination are about what they were when we were in college. There have been numerous outbreaks, over the last 20 years, one half as big. *It could* be the case that jumps between groups happen through one of these 3% drops in vaccination, but there is nothing other than wishful thinking and media speculation at this point.

8/25/2026 5:29:19 PM

Quote :

"Would you care to explain why it's always the exact same groups of people that have the drastic increases? "

Didn't I just offer a possible explanation? A lot of those groups (Mennonites, Amish, Ukraine immigrants) already have low vaccination rates. The only exception I see is the Mormon group, but Utah has seen more of a drop in vaccination rates than most states. Compound that with lowered vaccination rates in their surrounding communities, and it's no surprise that groups that already have low vaccination rates would be hit hardest.

I'm not seeing the mystery that you're seeing.

Quote :

"Do you think somehow MAHA movement is influencing these groups like Latter Day Saints and Ukrainian immigrants to not get vaccinated?"

Absolutely. Have you not seen how MAHA has been attacking vaccines???? They are influencing LOTS of groups to not get vaccinated...not just those.

And the fact is, Ukrainian immigrants ARE less likely to be vaccinated....don't you think that's relevant, regardless of what caused the lower rate???

And again: LDS is correlated with Utah is correlated with lower vax rates.

Where is the mystery?


[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 5:55 PM. Reason : ]

[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 5:56 PM. Reason : ]

8/25/2026 5:51:58 PM

They contact traced one strain between groups. There are to my knowledge no studies correlating vaccination rates in those groups. Outbreaks are somewhat random and noisy. There was one in recent times with 1200 people. There were ones in the 90s with 10s of thousands.

Maybe a group going from 30% to 25% vaccinated could move the needle. But there is nothing beyond speculation at this point that happened. That's all the news is doing is saying two facts and letting your brain make the association.

Edit:
McNichol et al. (BMC Infectious Diseases 2025;25:236), a stochastic SEIR model of importation into Canadian communities, provides the cleanest coverage-vs-outbreak-size mapping. In their words: “Below 85% coverage, outbreaks in small communities (size 1000) with relatively strong public health measures range from median size of under 4 (80% coverage) to 186 (55%)… above 95% coverage, 99% of measles introductions do not result in an outbreak.”

[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 6:43 PM. Reason : A]

8/25/2026 6:25:30 PM

You claim the outbreaks were random and noisy, but when I search, I'm still seeing a correlation between lowered vaccination rates and outbreaks. That is not random and noisy.

For example, the 90s outbreak of tens of thousands was in the late 80s/late 90s. I searched to see if there was a corresponding drop in vaccination rates that may have led to this, and Google AI told me:

Yes, there was a significant drop in vaccination rates for poor and low-income preschool-aged children in the United States during the late 1980s.While older, school-aged children maintained relatively high vaccination rates due to strictly enforced state school-entry mandates, younger children under the age of five—particularly those living in impoverished, inner-city areas—suffered from a massive gap in vaccine coverage.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC172858/






The Root Causes of the Decline

The erosion of immunization coverage among poor families during this period was driven by several overlapping systemic issues:


Federal Budget Cuts: Government austerity measures in the 1980s led to the erosion of funding for key federal public health programs, which restricted the availability of free vaccines in community clinics.



Rising Costs & Insurance Gaps: The introduction of newer, more expensive vaccines coincided with a lack of health insurance coverage for low-income children. Traditional employer-based health insurance rarely reimbursed parents for routine pediatric immunizations at the time.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00017268.htm




Healthcare Barriers: Poor families faced logistical hurdles, such as a lack of transportation, less flexible work schedules, and a shortage of public clinics. Healthcare providers also missed critical opportunities to administer vaccines during non-routine clinic visits.

(https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC172858/ is again provided as a link).

I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing evidence that the outbreaks have been random and noisy.

8/25/2026 7:01:22 PM

Also, I asked who was most impacted by the measles outbreaks around 1990. Turns out, it was the same group that saw lower vaccination rates. From Google AI again:

The 1990 U.S. measles outbreak affected unvaccinated preschool-aged children (under 5 years old), particularly in low-income Black and Hispanic communities in inner cities, the hardest.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1580601/



Where are you getting your information?

8/25/2026 7:04:08 PM

^ that's all I'm saying that the groups that have low vaccination rates are the ones at have outbreaks. It's been that way for 40 years. This particular outbreak has zero actual data showing it had anything to do with the MAHA movement. It could have happened in any year.

Now it's entirely possible a MAHA mom buying raw milk went to a Mennonite farm one week, contracted measles and took it to a separate one the next week, but none of the studies have indicated that is what happened.

90% to 80% certainly would. Those common with outbreaks are all under 60% vaccination rate. Dropping to 35% would barely change the rate in those groups

[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 7:28 PM. Reason : A]

8/25/2026 7:24:54 PM

What kind of additional evidence linking it to MAHA do you require beyond noting that:

1. MAHA are currently waging a rhetorical campaign against vaccinations, and

2. Vaccinations rates are concurrently dropping at the same time this is happening?

(and 3. It seems you've already acknowledged that lower vaccine rates correlate with outbreaks).

Can you tell me why the rates might coincidentally drop in a manner that is independent of MAHA's campaign?

Are you suggesting that one of the two major political parties in this country preaching against vaccinations has no effect on public perception of vaccinations? Or that that change in perception causes some parents to choose not to vaccinate their children?

Both seem rather self evident, to me.

[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 7:40 PM. Reason : 3]

8/25/2026 7:39:05 PM

Quote :

"Can you tell me why the rates might coincidentally drop in a manner that is independent of MAHA's campaign? Are you suggesting that one of the two major political parties in this country preaching against vaccinations has no effect on public perception of vaccinations? Or that that change in perception causes some parents to choose not to vaccinate their children? "

They were already dropping and accelerated during COVID mandate blowback. The measured change in parental attitudes is 95% to 92%. That's the measured average. Do you have other numbers?

Also, as stated the actual people infected of the 2000+ in this outbreak all come from the communities that were prone to outbreaks. These are not rich MAHA moms playing trad wife. Some of the communities were dealing with measles prior to covid.

The news reports both facts and lets everyone commit ad hoc fallacies because lol worm brain.

Pharma companies killed 100,000s of people in the last two decades between vioxx and opiates and lied about it while they knew it was happening. Some skepticism is warranted.

[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 7:59 PM. Reason : A]

8/25/2026 7:57:54 PM

vaccines aren’t opioids, man

8/25/2026 8:28:44 PM

Quote :

"They were already dropping and accelerated during COVID mandate blowback."

And that's exactly when we really started to see an increase in anti vaxxer rhetoric. In fact, there was quite a bit of overlap between the anti vaxxers and the mandate blowbacks. I mean, a LOT of overlap. And it actually evolved into MAHA.

The only reason you don't see a correlation between that and MAHA was that MAHA did not exist then....and that is why I do not consider this comment relevant: We saw the same correlation now we did then, it just has a new name now.

Quote :

"Also, as stated the actual people infected of the 2000+ in this outbreak all come from the communities that were prone to outbreaks. These are not rich MAHA moms playing trad wife."

Also, this is actually the very first thing I addressed: The communities that were prone to outbreaks back then are even MORE prone to outbreaks when the population surrounding those communities reduce vaccinations, too. Herd immunity, and all that. Amish have much lower vaccination rates, already. When the people they live among ALSO lower their vaccination rates, that's a double whammy on the Amish. I would EXPECT that population to be hit hardest. Can you tell me why they wouldn't be? That's how herd immunity (or the lack of it) works, as far as I understand.

Quote :

"Some of the communities were dealing with measles prior to covid."

Yes, and like I said, now that the greater population that these communities live within aren't vaccinating as much, they are dealing with MORE measles, because not only is herd immunity weak in the community, herd immunity is now also weaker in the greater population. It would honestly blow my mind if it were any other way.

Why do you think it would not work out that way? That honestly makes no sense to me.

[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 8:31 PM. Reason : ]

8/25/2026 8:30:44 PM

Oh, forgot this part:

Quote :

" The measured change in parental attitudes is 95% to 92%. That's the measured average. Do you have other numbers? "

How interesting! I DO have other numbers:

I'm also seeing the vaccination rates among school children ALSO dropped from 95% to 92%.

That seems to strengthen my position more than yours, I think (the correlation between perceptions of vax and actually getting the vax for your children).

Unless I'm missing your point. If so...what was your point with those numbers?

[Edited on August 25, 2026 at 8:38 PM. Reason : ]

8/25/2026 8:36:49 PM

Cael is an example of a smart person who buys into a conspiracy theory and sounds like a smart idiot when discussing the topic

8/25/2026 9:15:09 PM

^ which conspiracy theories do I believe in?

Quote :

" vaccines aren’t opioids, man "

Vioxx isn't a vaccine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements

And one that was pulled:

Quote :

" Based on these data, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) withdrew its recommendation to use the vaccine,[37] and the manufacturer of the vaccine withdrew it from the market in 1999. "

8/25/2026 10:44:15 PM