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What Next | Daily News and Analysis

A Measles Outbreak and Wake-Up Call

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate

News, Daily News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When enough people opt out of routine vaccinations for their children, diseases that have been all but eliminated can come roaring back, as is the case with a growing measles outbreak in West Texas.  Guest: Dr. Adam Ratner, pediatrician of infectious disease in New York City and author of Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Rob Gunther, and Ethan Oberman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:48.2

Health alert as cases of the measles continue to spread here in Texas.

0:56.6

Over the last few weeks, a small community in West Texas, just on the border with New Mexico,

1:03.6

has been grappling with a public health crisis, a cluster of measles spreading from an isolated Mennonite community outwards.

1:13.4

This mother and her eight children, some of whom were coughing and had a fever,

1:18.2

got tested this week at a mobile site in the outbreak's epicenter, Gaines County.

1:24.7

This started as two cases in Gaines County, and unsurprisingly, in a short amount of time, it's now 48.

1:33.3

Dr. Adam Ratner is an infectious disease specialist who just happens to have written a whole book about measles.

1:39.4

It's called booster shots.

1:41.4

That is alarming, and I know that it sounds like a small number of cases, but it's really

1:48.0

not.

1:48.5

Measles is the most contagious disease that we know.

1:53.0

I would not be surprised to see those case numbers go up significantly in the coming days.

1:59.4

Dr. Ratner was right about that.

...

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