What sparked the nation's worst measles outbreak in decades

Here & Now Anytime

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4.1 • 953 Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

Nearly 1,000 people in South Carolina have been infected in a measles outbreak that started in a largely unvaccinated community in October. Dr. Martha Edwards, president of the South Carolina chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, explains how this outbreak has spread so quickly.

And, social justice groups are remembering the Rev. Jesse Jackson. We look at how his civil rights leadership led to some of the activism we see today with Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for here and now anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design.
0:09.2	MathWorks accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at MathWorks.com.
0:17.5	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:22.3	It doesn't care about belief.
0:26.0	I mean, it follows the rules of science.
0:28.2	A look inside the measles outbreak in South Carolina,
0:31.9	which a local doctor says has found a foothold
0:34.7	and under-vaccinated immigrant communities from Eastern Europe.
0:48.8	It's Wednesday, February 18th, and this is here and now Any Dime from NPR and WVR.
0:55.0	I'm Chris Bentley.
1:05.0	Today on the show, it's hard to imagine progressive politics today without the work of Jesse Jackson. He wants something more than less harm.
1:09.0	He wants something more than less bigotry. He wants justice, and he wants
1:14.6	us to thrive. How future generations are trying to heed the late Reverend's call to keep hope alive,
1:21.9	coming up in about 15 minutes. But first, South Carolina is at the epicenter of the nation's largest measles outbreak in decades.
1:32.3	Nearly a thousand infections have been documented since October.
1:36.1	Compare that to the just eight cases of measles reported in South Carolina between 1991 and 2024.
1:43.9	Almost all of the new cases are in people who were not vaccinated
1:48.0	against the disease, according to the State Department of Public Health. Hundreds more people
1:52.8	have had to quarantine due to exposure. Martha Edwards heads the South Carolina chapter of the
1:58.6	American Academy of Pediatrics. She tells Scott Tong,
2:02.4	there have always been people who chose not to get vaccinated
2:05.4	in the Greenville-Spartenburg area where she's based
	...

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