In 1991, former U.S. First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former Arkansas First Lady Betty Bumpers founded the organization now known as Vaccinate Your Family in response to a national tragedy.
From 1989 through 1991, measles infected more than 55,000 people in the United States, hospitalized more than 11,000 and contributed to at least 123 deaths. Many of those who died were young children. It was a devastating reminder that the existence of a vaccine does not guarantee that it will reach every person who needs it.
At the time, many families couldn’t afford vaccines, and children were often sent to public clinics with long waits and limited hours. Providers missed chances to vaccinate children during regular visits, while paper records made it hard to follow up with those who had fallen behind.
The consequences were deadly. Among young children who developed measles during that resurgence, only a small proportion had been vaccinated as recommended. The epidemic was driven not by vaccine failure, but by the failure of our healthcare system to deliver vaccines to children at the right time.
Rosalynn Carter and Betty Bumpers saw childhood immunization as a national responsibility. They united governors’ spouses, health leaders, healthcare professionals, and advocates around a simple principle: No child should suffer or die from a preventable disease.
Their efforts expanded vaccine access through the Vaccines for Children Program, strengthened outbreak response and immunization records, and helped more children get vaccinated. Those investments paid off: in 2000, measles was declared eliminated in the United States, a landmark achievement that led many Americans to see it as a disease of the past.
But measles did not disappear. We prevented it.
That distinction matters today because the protections built over the past three decades are weakening. National coverage with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine among kindergartners has fallen from 95.2% during the 2019–2020 school year to 92.5% in 2024–2025. That decline left ~286,000 kindergartners at risk in a single school year. National averages also conceal communities in which vaccination rates are far lower than the ~95% needed to prevent sustained measles transmission. CDC data show the result: 2,286 confirmed cases and three deaths were reported in 2025. By September 15, another 3,387 cases had already been reported across the nation. Pennsylvania is in the midst of an outbreak that includes 693 measles cases. Four people have died, including one newborn who was infected in the womb.
It is one of the most contagious diseases known. In a population with no immunity, one infected person can transmit the virus to as many as 18 others. The virus spreads through the air, remains infectious for as long as two hours after someone has left a room, and can be transmitted before symptoms appear.
Measles can cause rash, pneumonia, seizures, encephalitis, hospitalization, and death. Years after an apparently routine infection, a person can develop subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a rare but nearly always fatal neurological disorder. Measles can also produce “immune amnesia,” erasing part of the immune system’s memory of infections it previously learned to fight. The virus can leave survivors more vulnerable to other diseases long after the rash fades.
Treatment options have not changed in decades. There is no antiviral therapy that cures measles or shortens its course. Clinicians can provide fluids, manage fever and treat complications such as pneumonia or secondary bacterial infections. Vitamin A may be administered under medical supervision in appropriate cases, but it is not a cure—and excessive doses can cause serious harm.
Measles prevention is not just preferable to treatment; it is our most effective defense.
We have made tremendous progress since 1991, but that progress is neither permanent nor self-sustaining. Protecting it requires continued investment in vaccine access, disease surveillance, healthcare professionals, and trusted community partnerships.
It also requires leaders to speak clearly about the evidence: 2 doses of an MMR vaccine are nearly 97% effective at preventing measles. Weakening confidence in vaccines or the systems that deliver them puts more people at risk of preventable disease and death.
We now face the same fundamental choice. We can treat today’s outbreaks as isolated events and wait for more children and adults to be hospitalized or killed. Or we can remember the lesson of the early 1990s: When vaccination rates fall and immunization systems falter, deadly diseases like measles return.
America has already paid a terrible price to learn that lesson. We should not have to learn it again.