Don’t Abandon the MMR Vaccine

National Review Online

Monday, September 08, 2025

 

Public-health officials were wrong to oversell the benefits of the Covid vaccine and then push for sweeping mandates based on their exuberant claims. But it would be a mistake to use those failures as a pretext to abolish vaccination requirements that have helped nearly eradicate dangerous diseases.

 

Unfortunately, in Florida, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has announced that the state would move to entirely eliminate vaccine requirements from public and private schools — not just rethink some or loosen up on the schedule, which is reasonable enough to consider, but scrap all of them on principle. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” he said. He asked, “Who am I as a government or anyone else, who am I as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body?”

 

Any changes to the Florida vaccination protocol would require legislative action. But with RFK Jr.’s rejiggered panel on vaccines expected to announce changes to current recommendations, a push by one of the largest, most influential, and best-governed Republican states to scrap all mandates could start a trend.

 

The question of whether or not to require a vaccination against a dangerous, potentially widespread disease is not a simple question of individual liberty, because it’s a choice that inevitably involves the welfare of others.

 

Despite the early sales pitches, Covid vaccines turned out not to be effective at preventing infection or transmission. Their major benefit has been to reduce the severity of the illness for higher-risk populations. This is why we oppose mandating vaccination for Covid and support leaving the choice up to individuals.

 

The MMR vaccine is a different case. The recommended two doses of MMR are 97 percent effective at preventing measles and rubella and 86 percent effective against mumps. They make transmission much less likely. This is affirmed by historical numbers.

 

In the decade before the first vaccine made its debut in 1963, about 500,000 cases of measles were reported each year, though the CDC estimates that the number was actually closer to 3 million to 4 million and that 400 to 500 died annually. Additional victims suffered blindness, hearing loss, or other permanent symptoms. Nearly every child got it by the age of 15. By 1980, the number of cases had dropped by 98 percent compared to 1960. By 2000, there were just 85 total cases and the disease was considered “eliminated.” Thanks to the proliferation of anti-vaccination sentiments — especially the debunked claims connecting the MMR vaccine to autism — cases have crept up, reaching the highest level in over 30 years in 2025.

 

Opponents of requiring vaccination argue that there is nothing stopping those who are concerned about measles from still taking the shot to protect themselves. However, some people are allergic to the MMR vaccines or cannot take them due to other health considerations. Additionally, the first dose isn’t administered until age one, leaving infants especially vulnerable to an increase in measles among the general population. Requirements that every school child get vaccinated are a crucial part of how states have built up enough herd immunity to virtually eradicate the disease. Ironically, it is the incredible success of vaccination that has washed away the collective memory of how dangerous the disease could be.

 

President Trump was right to caution against the blanket approach to vaccination being pushed by Florida. “You have vaccines that work,” he said. “Just pure and simple, they work. They’re not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used, otherwise some people are going to catch it and they endanger other people.”

 

It was wrong for federal, state, and local governments to go to such great lengths to coerce Americans into taking the Covid vaccines, and for public-health authorities to want to shut down all debate about it. Florida deserves great credit for resisting almost all this nonsense. But the pendulum shouldn’t swing in the other direction such that measles, through suspicion of all established practices and any vaccine requirements whatsoever, is given a new lease on life.