from the CYA-jr. dept

In the year 2,000 (cue the Conan O’Brien music), America had so successfully defeated measles as a disease that we were awarded elimination status for the disease. Then Trump was elected to a second term, for reasons I still can’t fully explain, after which RFK Jr. somehow was confirmed as the Secretary of HHS. Almost simultaneously, a massive measles outbreak began in Texas, spreading to most of the other states in the union, with particularly bad outbreaks in Arizona, Utah, and North Carolina. The reason for the outbreak is clear in the CDC statistics: falling vaccination rates for the MMR vaccine allowed the disease to gain a foothold and spread.…