Japan, 1975
In the three years before Japan suspended pertussis vaccination in 1975, the country recorded about 400 cases and 10 deaths. In the three years after, cases spiked to over 13,000 with 113 deaths. A nationwide outbreak in 1979 infected tens of thousands. 41 infants died of pertussis in that year alone.
400 cases → 13,000. 10 deaths → 113. Japan suspended pertussis vaccination and the disease came back in three years.
Japan resumed vaccination in 1981 with an improved acellular vaccine. Cases dropped. The experiment was over. It proved exactly what epidemiologists predicted.
United Kingdom, 1998-2024
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a study in The Lancet linking the MMR vaccine to autism. The study was fraudulent. The Lancet retracted it.
Wakefield lost his medical license. But vaccination rates in parts of England dropped below 50%.
Fifteen years later, a measles epidemic hit the UK. In 2024, England recorded 2,911 laboratory-confirmed measles cases, the highest since 2012. In January 2026, the World Health Organization announced that the UK lost its measles elimination status. A child died of measles in 2025.
One fraudulent paper. Decades of declining vaccination. A preventable death.
Nigeria, 2003
In 2003, religious and political leaders in northern Nigeria boycotted the oral polio vaccine, claiming it was a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children. Vaccination rates collapsed. Nigeria became the “most important generator” of vaccine-derived poliovirus in the world, accounting for more than half of all vaccine-derived polio cases globally. The virus exported from Nigeria to 18 other countries.
A disease that was nearly eradicated returned because misinformation convinced parents not to vaccinate their children. The pattern is the same in every case. The misinformation differs. The biology does not.
The United States, Now
The U.S. recorded 2,012 measles cases in 2025, a 30-year high. 93% were unvaccinated. Two children died in Texas.
The Health Secretary directed the CDC to remove 6 vaccines from the recommended schedule. The U.S. is on track to lose measles elimination status for the first time in decades.
Japan showed what happens when a government stops vaccinating for pertussis. The UK showed what happens when a fraudulent study erodes public confidence in MMR. Nigeria showed what happens when political leaders weaponize health misinformation.
Each case proved the same thing. Vaccines work. Removing them kills people. The timeline from policy change to deaths is measured in years, not generations.
The United States is not at the beginning of this experiment. It is watching the results from other countries and choosing to repeat it.
Update, June 10, 2026: The United States recorded 2,030 confirmed measles cases as of June 4, 2026, approaching the full-year 2025 total of 2,228, according to The Guardian. Infectious disease expert Andrew Pavia said the true case count is roughly three times the confirmed figure.
Cases are rising in Virginia and Pennsylvania after a statewide Utah cluster, and a Texas infant born to a measles-positive mother was hospitalized with acute measles meningoencephalitis, according to a CDC report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The federal government cut approximately $11 billion in pass-through funding to state and local health departments, which Pavia said has directly strained outbreak response capacity.
South Carolina pediatrician Annie Andrews, now running for US Senate, attributed the outbreak to decades of vaccine misinformation and called it “entirely preventable.” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has framed measles vaccination as a personal choice and has not taken proactive national steps to counter the outbreak, Pavia told The Guardian.
Update, July 22, 2026: Delaware confirmed its first two measles cases in more than a decade in Kent County, both in unvaccinated men, according to the Delaware Division of Public Health. On July 21, the Montgomery County Public Health Department in Texas confirmed three additional cases in an unvaccinated family who had contact with an infected out-of-state traveler.
The CDC has recorded 2,260 measles cases across 44 states as of last week, approaching the 2,289 cases confirmed across all of 2025. More than 90% of cases in both years were in people who had not been vaccinated, according to CDC data reported by Delaware Spotlight.
Delaware launched an Office of the Surgeon General earlier this year and joined a six-state coalition with Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to produce independent vaccination recommendations outside federal channels. Governor Matt Meyer issued a standing order directing pharmacists to maintain vaccine access regardless of shifts in federal guidance.
Update, August 3, 2026: Crystal Rommen, director of Louisiana Families for Vaccines, published a commentary in the Louisiana Illuminator urging Louisiana residents to engage with state immunization policy during National Immunization Awareness Month. Rommen identified the Vaccines for Children Program and school immunization requirements as the specific policy levers Louisiana lawmakers currently control.
Rommen wrote that infants too young to be vaccinated and immunocompromised patients bear direct risk when community vaccination rates fall, a pattern the Japan pertussis case record from 1975 to 1988 documented. The commentary called on residents to contact their legislators and attend committee hearings on pending immunization bills before the next legislative session.
Sources
- NPR: Fifteen Years After a Vaccine Scare, a Measles Epidemic
- PubMed: Japan Pertussis Vaccination Suspension and Disease Resurgence
- LSHTM: UK Loses Measles Elimination Status After Wakefield Fallout
- PMC: Nigeria Polio Vaccine Boycott and Global Spread
- Science: Nigeria Became World’s Largest Source of Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus
- FactCheck.org: Timeline of RFK Jr.’s Mixed Messaging on the Measles Vaccine