Texas and New Mexico have seen the steepest increases in measles (MMR) vaccination in 2025 – and have also seen the highest number of measles cases.
This raises serious questions about what is actually causing these outbreaks – and whether the main “solution” is exacerbating the problem.
Increased vaccination
- Texas: From January 1 to March 16, 2025, Texas administered at least 173,000 doses of measles vaccine, up from 158,000 doses during the same period in 2024 – an increase of about 9.5% .
- New Mexico: According to the New Mexico Department of Health, 14,757 doses of MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine were administered in New Mexico from February 1 to March 31, 2025, compared to 8,162 doses during the same period in 2024 – an 80.8% increase.
Increased cases
- The clear epicenter is Texas , which had 709 cases as of early May, far exceeding all other states.
- There have been 71 confirmed cases of measles reported in the state of New Mexico as of early May 2025, as confirmed by the New Mexico Department of Health.
Live virus, live risk: Infections emerging after MMR vaccination campaigns raise alarm
JonFleetwood.com exclusively maintains a running list of troubling patterns linking measles infections to recent government-led MMR vaccination campaigns in North America:
- According to the manufacturer, the MMR vaccine contains live measles virus.
- The live measles virus in the MMR vaccine is the result of gain-of-function (GOF) laboratory experiments, which means it has been intentionally engineered to increase its ability to infect more human cells than wild-type measles virus and may retain properties that allow transmission and replication in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
- The live virus in the vaccine can be shed for weeks after vaccination, potentially infecting unvaccinated individuals. A 1995 CDC study found that 83% of vaccinated children had measles virus in their urine. An April 2012 article in the peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics & Child Health reported that a child was tested after developing a new measles-like rash after receiving the measles vaccine, suggesting that the vaccine could have caused the disease in the vaccinated person. Nucleic acid testing confirmed that “vaccine-type measles virus was shed in [the child’s] urine.” A 2014 study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases confirms that vaccinated individuals can transmit measles to multiple contacts.
- There are no peer-reviewed studies confirming that the virus in the measles vaccine is less infectious or replicates less in humans than the wild-type virus found in nature, meaning that health officials have no scientific basis to claim that the vaccine strain poses a lower risk of transmission to unvaccinated people.
- The argument that many measles cases are caused by wild-type measles viruses, not the live virus in the vaccine, is undermined by the fact that the PCR test used to detect wild-type infection is only reliable less than 3% of the time. A study in the journal Access Microbiology shows that standard PCR tests may not effectively distinguish between vaccine and wild-type strains. The CDC has confirmed that PCR tests often misinterpret measles vaccine virus infection as wild-type measles infection: “The failure of these test panels to distinguish disease-causing measles virus from incidental detection of measles vaccine virus RNA could have a significant impact on public health reporting and response, potentially leading to misdiagnosis of measles virus infection,” the CDC writes.
- Measles outbreaks have followed government-led vaccination campaigns in Texas, Canada and Hawaii, raising concerns about vaccine-related infections.
- The 12-month-old girl infected in Michigan had recently received the MMR vaccine for measles.
- Doña Ana, the most populous and most vaccinated county in southern New Mexico, recently reported its first measles infection after the state nearly doubled its measles vaccination rate from the previous year.
- Virginia’s first confirmed case of measles was identified in a child in 2025 after state and local health officials had issued several public health announcements urging residents to get the MMR vaccine.
- Just weeks after the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) rolled out a “measles simulator dashboard” designed to pressure students and residents to get MMR vaccines, Illinois reported its first confirmed measles case in 2025.
- The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recently confirmed the fifth case of measles in Colorado this year, in a Denver County adult with a confirmed measles (MMR) vaccination history.
