Cases of measles are rising across the U.S, but Utah, in particular, is being hit hard. In 2024, Utah was ranked as having one of the lowest rates of vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella in the U.S. But we used to be one of the highest.
Vaccines are widely regarded as the safest and most effective method of preventing infectious diseases. Their development is rigorous and subject to extremely strict oversight.
“Vaccines are the most carefully studied of virtually all the medications we use, because we give them to healthy people, and we give them to healthy children, so they're subjected to enormous scrutiny for their safety and effectiveness," said Dr. Andrew Pavia, a professor of pediatrics and internal medicine in the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah. As a certified medical professional, he understands vaccines and how they work.
“Vaccines are compounds where we've taken a part of a dangerous germ, bacteria, virus, that will induce a protective immune response and produce that as a single protein or sugar that will teach the body how to protect you from an infection without giving you the infection itself,” he said.
Because vaccines are targeted, meticulously developed, and involve a harmless form of a dangerous germ, they are not only extremely effective, but also much safer than, say, trying to build one’s own immune response purposely by exposing oneself to an infectious disease.
“So instead of being exposed, in general, to thousands of proteins and sugars and carbohydrates from an intact bacterium we take the part that teaches the immune system most effectively to develop a protective response,” Pavia said.
Biologically this makes sense, and the process works. It works so well in fact, that vaccines are sometimes regarded as "victims of their own success," as people today often have little, if any, reference point to how dangerous the diseases vaccines prevent can really be.
“In my mother's generation, people were terrified because children with polio were in iron lungs. Children were dying of meningitis; they were going deaf from infections. And every mother knew that," Pavia said. "Nowadays, people have not seen the devastating effects of many of these diseases, and so the idea that we're giving you a vaccine to protect you against something that your neighbor's kid didn't have is a little bit harder to understand.”
And that makes sense, though the effect is heartbreaking. Pavia now deals often with new cases of measles.
“This is an incredibly frustrating situation, one that shouldn't exist. We had eliminated the transmission of measles in the United States, and last year we had roughly 2000 cases of measles in the U.S. and about 200 cases of measles in Utah,” he said.
Though that is alarming, perhaps equally shocking is how quickly childhood vaccination rates have declined. In 2014, Utah had one of the highest vaccination rates against childhood diseases in the U.S., with about 98.5% of the population vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella. But as of 2024, we’re now one of the lowest. And remember, this is immunization against serious childhood diseases.
“People tend to lump childhood diseases in as mild diseases and think about something like chicken pox. Measles is different," Pavia said. "It's not a benign disease. It can kill; it can cause permanent brain damage. It sends about 10% of the kids who have it to the hospital with pneumonia, and interestingly, it does significant damage to the immune system, such that you're susceptible to other infections for weeks to months after you have measles. That's why we take measles very, very seriously.”
According to the CDC, in just the first month of 2026 Utah racked up more cases of measles than any state other than South Carolina. Thankfully though, Pavia said vaccines protect more than just the person who receives them.
“Vaccines are safe, effective and really important for protecting your child, but also all the children in your community,” he said.
This means that each individual vaccination could help prevent further transmission of this deadly and once eradicated disease.
