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Digital EditionOpinion | The No-Vax Tax
Dan Reynolds is editor-in-chief of Risk & Insurance. He can be reached at [email protected].
According to scientists, 2025 was the worst year for measles outbreaks in the United States since 1991.
Outbreaks in South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Arizona and elsewhere have afflicted thousands of people, the majority of them children. The situation has become so grim that Dr. Mehmet Oz, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has made public statements urging people to get vaccinated against the highly contagious virus.
After decades of activism and vaccination, the United States was considered to have technically eliminated measles in 2000.
That “eliminated” status is now threatened.
We know the source of this unfortunate development, of course. It stems from too many people denying science, refusing to listen to the voice of educated and established experts, and undermining our belief in and use of life-saving vaccinations.
Years ago, in this magazine, we wrote about a coming degradation of the voice of authority. The worry was that social media echo chambers were creating confusion in people’s minds, to the degree that they would begin to ignore credentialed scientists and come to their own conclusions in matters of public health.
The COVID pandemic of 2020 and beyond taught us all some harsh lessons about the cost of highly infectious viruses to human life and our prosperity. Let’s hope enough people can come to their senses, bring vaccination rates back up to where they should be, and in doing so forestall a potential calamity. &
