Put a new state on the board, Johnny.
State health officials report the number of measles cases is growing in Kansas this year as cases climb nationwide.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) reported on March 20 on its website that a total of 10 confirmed measles cases are confirmed in the state. All of the cases are being reported in people who are below the age of 17 with the majority in the five to 10-year-old age group.
“As of March 21, 2025, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) is reporting ten (10) cases of measles within Grant, Morton and Stevens counties. All these cases are in children aged from 0-17. Nine (9) of the individuals were not vaccinated, and one (1) is under-vaccinated having only received 1 out of the 2 doses of the recommended MMR vaccine. There have been no hospitalizations or deaths among the cases. Due to the highly contagious nature of measles, additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area in Kansas and in surrounding counties, especially among those that are unvaccinated.”
The KDHE confirmed the first case of measles in a Kansas resident since 2018 on March 13. Multiple other cases were identified earlier this week in Morton and Stevens Counties in southwest Kansas.
The Topeka Capital-Journal adds some details.
Kansas is now up to 10 confirmed cases of measles, all of which have been children who are either unvaccinated or under-vaxxed.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Monday reported 10 cases of measles, spread across Grant, Morton and Stevens counties. The update came through the Kansas Health Alert Network.
The alert said all 10 cases are children ages birth to 17 years old. Nine weren’t vaccinated, while one child was under-vaccinated with only one of the two recommended doses of the MMR vaccine.
“Due to the highly contagious nature of measles, additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area in Kansas and in surrounding counties, especially among those that are unvaccinated,” the KDHE alert said.
[…]
Kansas officials told The Capital-Journal last week that epidemiologists have not been able to establish a link to the outbreak affecting west Texas. The three Kansas counties with cases are all in the southwest corner of Kansas, about 375 miles from the outbreak epicenter of Gaines County in the Texas panhandle.
Well, we did expect this outbreak to go national. This may or may not be evidence of that, but if it does turn out that this outbreak is completely independent of the Texas one, is that in any way good news? I sure don’t think so. The point remains, there’s a lot of measles out there, and it’s finding unvaccinated children like Republicans find excuses for leaking confidential national security information when one of them does it. Ars Technica has a good roundup of local coverage of the Kansas outbreak. I’ll keep an eye on this to see if we do get a ruling one way or the other on the possible connection.
Before I move on, let me join this Kansas opinion columnist in offering kudos to Sen. Roger Marshall for his statement that Kansans talk to their doctors about their vaccination status. It’s not much, and Sen. Marshall is not at all a good example to follow in general on health matters, but this is the right thing to do and it’s more than what Texas’ Republicans have been doing.
Meanwhile, here’s your Texas update.
The measles outbreak in western Texas is continuing to grow with 18 cases confirmed over the last five days, bringing the total to 327 cases, according to new data published Tuesday.
Nearly all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). At least 40 people have been hospitalized so far.
Just two cases have occurred in people fully vaccinated with the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, according to the data.
In the Texas outbreak, children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases at 140, followed by children ages 4 and under accounting for 105 cases, according to the data.
[…]
It comes as another case of measles was confirmed in New Mexico, bringing the total to 43, according to data from the state Department of Health. The majority of cases are in Lea County, which borders Gaines County — the epicenter of the outbreak in Texas.
Additionally, two cases of measles were confirmed in Erie County, Pennsylvania, on Monday. A media release from the Erie County Department of Health said the cases were linked to international travel and there is not a high risk of exposure for the general population.
We get these updates twice a week, and it seems to me that the Tuesday updates show smaller growth than the Friday updates. Not exactly sure why that is, but that’s what it looks like to me.
And now we have an Oklahoma update.
The Oklahoma State Department of Health has released a situation update on measles cases in the state.
As of Tuesday, March 25, there are 9 cases in Oklahoma, with seven confirmed and two more deemed “probable” among unvaccinated people in northeastern Oklahoma.
Two cases that were previously reported as probable have been upgraded to confirmed.
The OSDH said confirmed cases show symptoms consistent with the standard definition of measles, and they have a confirmatory test result.
The probable cases lack a confirmatory test result, or like to a lab-confirmed case, according to the OSDH.
It was determined that no cases were through public exposure.
This story clarifies that last sentence for me a bit, saying “none of the reported cases have resulted from exposure to public settings and public exposure has been limited due to the effected individuals isolating after recognizing their exposure”. I’m still not sure how alarming that is. All of the stories that were accessible to me were from local TV station websites, so there’s no more information that I was able to find. Perhaps this will make it into the next national stories.
And there will be more stories.
“I’m worried it’s getting worse,” Katherine Wells, director of public health for Lubbock, told NBC News.
Many people aren’t getting tested for measles, and efforts to increase vaccination in the affected areas have gotten a lukewarm response, Wells said during a media briefing by the Big Cities Health Coalition on Tuesday.
Wells said she thought it could be a year until the outbreak is controlled.
The outbreak that started in West Texas in late January has now infected 309 people in 14 Texas counties. “All of the cases in these counties are related to each other,” Wells said, adding: “We are going to see mini outbreaks” as the virus spreads unchecked.
Perhaps that’s what we’re seeing in Kansas. Or for that matter in Oklahoma, where the illnesses are in the eastern end of the state while in Kansas they’re in the west. Whatever you want to call it, it’s happening.
And finally, in case you needed further evidence that RFK Jr is the fucking worst.
A fake website meant to look like a CDC webpage was put up sometime this month and quickly taken offline, but not before diligent information manipulation researchers noticed several signs that it was likely connected to Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The site falsely suggested a link between vaccines and autism, using “testimonial” videos made by CHD and long-debunked scientific disinformation. While the site has been taken down, the question remains: what, exactly, was the plan here?
The fake website, RealCDC.org, was first spotted in late January by intel threat researcher Kyle Ehmke. While the page displayed no content then, he noted it was administered through the same Cloudflare account as CHD’s website and other domains related to CHD.
By March 20, according to Ehmke’s later research, and as corroborated by archived versions of the site, the page was populated with content meant to look exactly like an official CDC website, replicating its fonts, links, and presentation.
But there was a crucial difference: the fake site included a series of papers and other purported evidence claiming “increased risks of various chronic conditions, including ASD [autism spectrum disorder]” from vaccines. It also included testimonial videos from parents claiming their children had been sickened by vaccines, with scaremongering titles like “MMR Vax Gave My Son Autism,” “We Signed His Life Away,” and “Mother of 3: I Will Never Vaccinate Again.” The videos featured on the site are all hosted by Children’s Health Defense.
The site also contained accurate information about the fact that vaccines don’t cause autism, making what Dr. Bruce Gellin, who previously directed HHS’ vaccine program, described to the New York Times as “a mixture of things that are legitimately peer-reviewed and things that are bogus.” Among the papers was one authored by former physician Mark Geier, whose license to practice has been suspended or revoked in every state where he once held one, and his son David, who has no medical training; both Geiers have a long history in the anti-vaccine movement and as witnesses in court cases attempting to link vaccines and autism.
The site was also independently investigated by E. Rosalie Li, the founder of the Information Epidemiology Lab, which studies information manipulation and malign influence, especially around the intersection of public health and national security, and who, in addition to the Cloudfare account, found further evidence linking it to Children’s Health Defense. Both Li and Ehmke found that RealCDC.org redirected to CHDstaging.org, which has been used by Children’s Health Defense to power projects like its community discussion forum and a site promoting Vaxxed 3, the latest installment in a series of films promoting discredited claims about COVID-19 and vaccine safety. Overall, the CHD sites and RealCDC use “identical infrastructure,” Li says, “that would be unlikely if they were just random websites” unrelated to one another.
“You click on the videos and it goes to the CHD website,” she told Mother Jones.
This has been another edition of “RFK Jr is the fucking worst”. Tune in again for the next edition, which is sure to happen sooner or later.
They chose their problems. I didn’t care what happened to those who did not take the COVID-19 vaccine, and I certainly don’t care what happens now because they think vaccines will turn us into zombies.
Now, not to say that measles can’t become serious, but the fact is that US deaths from measles had dropped way way down BEFORE the vaccine. To be clear, that is deaths, not cases. Many would surmise that measles deaths in the developed world dropped due to better nutrition, sanitation, antibiotics that could combat secondary infection.
Having said that, the MMR vaccine has been around a long time, it is well known and safe, and worth getting rather than getting measles. But, I find the current hand wringing and blaming RFK Jr. a bit hyperbolic. When I was growin’ up in the 1900s (back when people thought you got sick from not dressing warm enough), measles was not a crisis. Let me put you to the Brady Bunch episode when Peter got measles, and he was saying how if you’re sick, it’s great to have measles, because you get a few days off school. His mom tells his dad, he’s got a lot of spots, a slight temperature, and a big smile, because he gets to stay home from school. And his dad, was saying that he would pick up a few comic books for Peter to read while he stays at home. A few years ago, NPR ran a story about this episode and how it was fueling “anti vaxx activists.” But this was the attitude back in the 1900s, a sharp contrast to the virus mania of today, and the illusion that nobody will get sick, ever, if you just listen to Big Pharma.
Well, that seems heartless: Not caring.
We should care about such things, but as a matter of public policy, there are always limited resources and competing priorities. So, if saving children’s lives across the board is the targeted objective (priority), the measles risk is a minor one statistically speaking. Traffic deaths and accidents are a bigger contributor to mortality. Violence too.
The info below is a bit dated, but it nevertheless illustrates the point:
Leading Causes of Child and Adolescent Death / Burden of Disease
In 2016, there were 20,360 deaths among children and adolescents in the United States. More than 60% resulted from injury-related causes, which included 6 of the 10 leading causes of death [,,,]. Injuries were classified according to underlying mechanism (e.g., motor vehicle crash or firearm-related injury) and intent (e.g., suicide, homicide, unintentional, or undetermined), both of which are critical to understanding risk and protective factors and to developing effective prevention strategies.
When we examined all deaths among children and adolescents according to intent, unintentional injuries were the most common cause of injury-related death (57%; 7047 of 12,336 deaths), and among intentional injuries, suicide was slightly more common (21%; 2560 of 12,336) than homicide (20%; 2469 of 12,336).
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754
Jason: “Many would surmise that measles deaths in the developed world dropped due to better nutrition, sanitation, antibiotics that could combat secondary infection.”\
Many might surmise (correctly or otherwise), but fortunately we have science to tell us with a little more certainty whether these surmises are correct.
“When I was growin’ up in the 1900s (back when people thought you got sick from not dressing warm enough), measles was not a crisis. Let me put you to the Brady Bunch episode when Peter got measles”
The 1900s was a long century. 100 years long, to be precise. Clearly attitudes about measles and vaccines changed during that span, as did medical science and the vaccines themselves. But the Measles vaccine was developed in 1963, so it was around at the time of the BB episode you reference. I will simply note that getting your medical perspective (even then) from a prime time comedy series is probably not the best move, and citing that as evidence of anything other than how clueless people were then (and some are now) is just you being disingenuous.
But then we ALL knew that.
re: ” Traffic deaths and accidents are a bigger contributor to mortality. Violence too.”
True, but none of those are contagious, nor (for the most part) would/could they cause blindness or hearing loss as a long term effect, or encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) or meningitis (inflammation of the lining of the brain) in the short term.
But then we ALL knew that (as well as knowing that getting your picture taken doesn’t steal a portion of your soul).
@Joel: Many might surmise (correctly or otherwise), but fortunately we have science to tell us with a little more certainty whether these surmises are correct.
The point there is that measles mortality had dramatically dropped prior to the vaccine. I did get the MMR vaccine as a child, and never had measles. Not being disingenuous, but simply pointing out no need to panic over measles.
Tell that to the dead kids.
Why attack Hochman [Gee! Another German! … “high man” in English] for sharing a relevant tidbit from his personal biography?
As previously disclosed, we all had it. When I say we, I refer to my age cohort.
We are now presumed immune and in no need of that measles vaccine. Getting it wasn’t pleasant, as far as I can remember, but we survived: mumps (swelling of the jaws/cheeks, chicken pox & rubella (red spots all over), whooping caugh, and perhaps a few more. High fever was treated with ice cubes in a cloth diaper wrapped around the head, no Tylenol. Aspirin was around, but I am not sure we got even that.
We did get polio vax on sugar cubes in elementary school though. And flouride tables for better tooth health. All in the 1960s.
Doesn’t mean I am an anti-vaxxer. No. I got several COVID shots, actually, but would have thought twice about it if they had been expensive.
More generally, you as an individual can’t know what works or doesn’t. That’s for science to determine. That’s why research intergrity is of the utmost importance. You have to trust the science and the medical profession and big pharma, and sometimes things go awry. Life has never been perfect. Death is inevitable in the end. We have to do the best we can. Especially with prevention, but you can’t eliminate all risk. A lot of times, taking risk is not only fun, but also necessary and a good thing.
Time-travelling back to the 60s, Contergan (thalidomide) turned out to be a problems (unknown until it was too late). There was one kid in our neighborhood with fingers protruding from the shoulder. No arms. And of course, many other sad stories of malformations. But in a caring society, individuals with such physical defects still have a place.