The country’s largest measles outbreak in over 25 years is currently devastating South Carolina. However, Ralph Abraham, the number two official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., just dismissed the chaos as simply the “cost of doing business.”
According to a Washington Post report, Abraham, who was previously Louisiana’s top health official and known for unwinding vaccine promotion events, acknowledged that vaccination is the best way to prevent the disease. However, he quickly added, “We have these communities that choose to be unvaccinated. That’s their personal freedom.”
It’s an awful reaction considering the sheer scale of the crisis. South Carolina is grappling with more than 840 measles cases since the outbreak started in October, primarily affecting unvaccinated children and adults. The outbreak is centered in the Spartanburg area, where vaccination coverage has fallen below the critical level needed to prevent the virus from spreading.
Community immunity is the only way to protect infants too young to be vaccinated and immunocompromised people
The highly contagious airborne virus has already spread quickly through more than 30 schools in the area, forcing hundreds of students into quarantine. Over 440 unvaccinated people are being told to stay home for up to 21 days after exposure because they weren’t immunized. Additionally, 19 adults and children have already been hospitalized in South Carolina for measles, which can sadly cause fatal pneumonia and long-term complications.
Pediatrician Martha Edwards, who heads the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, summed up the gravity of the situation perfectly. She said, “We are losing decades of public health successes, and children will get very sick and die from preventable illnesses.”
Spartanburg County is an upstate region that has historically had lower childhood vaccination rates. The student vaccination rate for all required immunizations in the county dropped from 95 percent in the 2019-2020 school year to a worrisome 89 percent this school year. One of the biggest drivers of this drop is the rise in religious exemptions, which has more than tripled since the 2018-2019 school year, jumping from 3 percent to 9.6 percent.
The concern isn’t just local either. Even as cases decline in South Carolina, there are reports of cases across the country, with South Carolina seeding 15 new cases in neighboring North Carolina and 3 in Washington State. The increasing number of unvaccinated children is even leading to preventable deaths. Scott Thorpe, a former South Carolina health department epidemiologist, predicted, “We will continue to see measles cases all over the country as vaccination rates continue to fall.”
