Aren’t we clever, we’ve resurrected measles.

Falling childhood vaccine coverage and a large, smoldering outbreak that was kindled in an undervaccinated pocket of West Texas have driven the United States to a troubling new milestone: There have been more measles cases in the US this year than any other since the disease was declared eliminated a quarter-century ago.

Nice work, Bob. You’re a real piece of shit.

Experts say this year’s cases are likely to be severely undercounted because many are going unreported. Three people have died from measles this year – two children in Texas and one adult in New Mexico, all of whom were unvaccinated – matching the total number of US measles deaths from the previous two and a half decades.

Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, meaning there has not been continuous transmission for more than a year at a time. Reaching this status was “a historic public health achievement,” according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, possible in large part because of vaccine development. The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine that is most commonly used first became widely available in the US in the 1970s.

With the result (among other results) that more and more people know less and less about measles. Bad Kennedy exploits that lack of awareness for his crank purposes.