Amid measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico that have killed two unvaccinated people including a healthy six-year-old, while infected hundreds, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is promoting the long-denounced practice of exposing children to the potentially deadly virus at so-called “measles parties.”
Until the anti-vax movement—promoted by activists including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s highly controversial Secretary of Health and Human Services, and far-right extremists often aligned with the President’s MAGA movement—took hold in the United States, fueling a significant drop in vaccination rates, measles was considered to have been eliminated in 2000.
The two measles-related deaths, the BBC reports, “are jarring to many in a country that, before last week, had not recorded anyone killed by measles since 2015. The 2015 death was the first one attributed to measles in the US since 2003.” Less than three full months into the year, the number of reported measles infections is rapidly approaching the total for all of 2024.
One of the most contagious diseases on the planet, according to Johns Hopkins University, “Nine out of 10 unimmunized children who are in contact with an infected person will contract the virus. The virus can linger in the air for about two hours after a person with measles has left the room.”
READ MORE: WWII B-29 Bomber Enola Gay Falls Victim to Pentagon’s Sweeping DEI Purge
Measles is about six times more contagious than the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the anti-vaccine movement—championed by activists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s controversial Secretary of Health and Human Services, and far-right extremists often aligned with his MAGA movement—has gained traction in the United States, leading to a significant decline in vaccination rates in children and adults.
The rise of social media has helped spread anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, despite numerous studies proving vaccines are safe and effective.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in addition to the well-known rash and red spots, measles can cause extreme fever, up to 104°F, conjunctivitis, and lead to hospitalization, pneumonia, encephalitis, and death.
“About 1 child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain). This can lead to convulsions and leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability,” the CDC reports. “Nearly 1 to 3 of every 1,000 children who become infected with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications.”
CDC also reports in rare cases measles can lead to long term complications, including subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), “a very rare, but fatal disease of the central nervous system. It results from a measles virus infection acquired earlier in life.”
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, however, is promoting measles and chicken pox “parties.”
The Georgia Republican who has become very influential in Congress, sitting on top committees and subcommittees, chose to ignore the science.
“They used to have measles parties, basically get all the kids together so they all catch it and develop immunity,” Greene declared on social media, as first reported by MeidasTouch News. “Then when I was a kid, they did the same thing with chicken pox. Now, they demonize parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids.”
READ MORE: ‘Fiery Emperor Nero’: French Senator Denounces Trump and His ‘Ketamine-Fueled Jester’
Greene also reposted this video that appears to try to make measles “parties” a kind of feel-good, fun, retro event.
The video shows a portion of the 1970’s hit sitcom, “The Brady Bunch,” then cuts to an episode of the television crime drama “Law and Order: SVU.”
Last week in Texas, where about 200 have been infected, a health official is speaking out, urging parents to get their children vaccinated and not hold measles “parties.”
“Dr. Ron Cook, chief health officer for the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, urged families to avoid such gatherings and instead get vaccinated,” The Dallas Morning News reported last week.
“We can’t predict who is going to do poorly with measles, being hospitalized, potentially get pneumonia or encephalitis, or potentially pass away from this,” Dr. Cook reportedly said. “It’s a foolish thing to go have measles parties.”
On social media, several medical experts responded to Greene, urging parents to not hold or allow their children to attend measles “parties.”
Jared Ryan Sears, who writes The Pragmatic Humanist, mocked Greene’s assertions.
“They used to put cocaine in Coca-Cola. Doctors didn’t use to wash their hands and sterilize instruments before surgery. People used to live in iron lungs because there wasn’t a Polio vaccine. We learn and apply that knowledge to be healthier and save lives. It is not a tricky concept, Marge,” he noted.
Watch the video above or at this link.
READ MORE: Elon Musk Cannot Say ‘You’re Fired’ Trump Tells Cabinet
Image via Reuters