May 28, 2026
Rising Measles Cases: Podcast Episode #344
As measles cases rise again across the U.S., many parents are asking important questions: Is my child fully protected? What should I do if my family is exposed? How concerned should parents really be?
In this episode of Ask the Doulas Podcast, Kristin sits down with Dr. Michael T. Myers Jr. to discuss what families need to know right now about measles outbreaks, vaccine protection, exposure risks, and practical steps parents can take to keep their children safe.
Dr. Myers brings more than 35 years of experience in pediatrics, primary care leadership, public health initiatives, and health care consulting. Before retiring in 2025, he served as Chief of Primary Care, Pediatrics, and Practice Transformation for Summit Health New Jersey. Throughout his career, he also held leadership roles with Mass General Brigham, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Kristin and Dr. Myers break down the facts in a calm, practical way to help parents feel informed rather than overwhelmed. They also discuss how misinformation impacts family decision-making and why proactive conversations with your pediatric provider matter now more than ever.
Whether you are expecting a baby, raising young children, or simply trying to stay informed, this episode offers timely guidance every parent should hear.
This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Use the code GOLDCOAST to receive a discount of up to 20 percent off.
Hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Dr. Michael T. Myers, Jr. He was the chief of primary care of pediatrics and practice transformation for Summit Health, New Jersey, one of the state’s largest medical groups, before he retired in 2025. A physician leader with more than 35 years of experience in medical group practice management, public health initiatives, and healthcare consulting. Dr. Myers held leadership positions at Partners Healthcare in Boston, now Mass General, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and PricewaterhouseCoopers during the COVID-19 pandemic. He served as COVID-19 scientific consultant to Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts, and was appointed adjunct lecturer. His first book, Covidology: A Field Guide is an academic title for college health and science majors. It was released in December 2022. Dr. Myers completed his primary care residency, Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and received his MD from Harvard, PA from Johns Hopkins, and MBA from Northeastern University.
Very impressive! Welcome, Dr. Myers!
Thank you! Thanks for having me, Kristin!
Yes! And our topic today is so important to our doula clients, to birth and baby professionals that we collaborate and work with, and certainly the parents who want to plan ahead and have those conversations with caregivers. Measles is our primary topic, but I’m sure we’ll get into many more vaccine-related questions that come up.
Sounds good! Yes, excellent.
So the rates are rising across the U.S. for measles, so let’s start there.
Yes, unfortunately, the not-so-great news is that we are now in a measles outbreak that began in January 2025 and still continues. It started in West Texas, and we have now climbed above 4,000 cases. This is the most measles cases in the United States in over 30 years. Among these 4,000 cases, unfortunately, about 350 people have been hospitalized with either pneumonia, encephalitis, or other types of illnesses, and three people have died. In some ways, this is the expected prognosis or outcome when you have a measles illness. This is a very serious, contagious disease, and it’s been driven primarily by people that lack immunization. Now, let me just be clear about that. Being immunized means that you can either have had the disease naturally, and you developed antibodies and immune cells; or you’ve been vaccinated. But what we’re finding now is that literally 97% of people that succumb to a measles infection right now in this outbreak either are completely unvaccinated or their vaccination status is not known.
This is now going on in 32 states across the United States, Texas, Florida. There was a huge number of cases recently in South Carolina. Utah is the current place there are a number of outbreaks. And this is just sweeping the country and continuing, unfortunately.
As far as precautions, we can check our vaccine records through the health department and make sure that everything is current. And I was mentioning to you earlier that oftentimes families that we work with will ask my team’s status, and I have noticed many more questions about measles popping up because of what we’re seeing nationally, more so than the latest flu booster and COVID. They’re still coming up with clients, but I’m getting more and more questions about measles and MMR.
Yes, it’s certainly very topical. I’m not sure of the entire demographic of your staff, but if you’re born before 1957, you can assume that you have lifetime immunity to measles. If you’re a healthcare worker, though, even though you are born before that time, and if you’re likely to be around active measles cases, the CDC still recommends that people have a booster, even if they’re born before 1957. There are also lab tests that you can take to basically confirm that you have antibodies to the measles virus, so that might be another means to confirm or provide reassurance to people that are concerned.
That is so helpful. As far as our listeners who are having those difficult conversations with people who plan to visit after baby’s born, including grandparents, friends, family – what should they be looking at as far as vaccine status, especially with the measles outbreak, primarily?
You can get this information through your public health department. Just find out if there’s an active measles outbreak occurring where live or in the state that you’re in. As I said before, this outbreak is going on now across 32 states and New York City, mostly Texas, Utah, Florida, and South Carolina. So particular in those states, you want to be really careful about checking with your public health department to see what’s the status in the community. Measles is probably the most contagious germ that humans are exposed to, and essentially for you to not become infected with measles, 95% of the community has to be immunized, either through prior infection or vaccination. That’s why we’re seeing the outbreak happen, because that 95% number has actually slipped very low in certain populations. So I would say check the status of what’s going on in your local communities. For grandparents, it means essentially if you’re born before 1957, you can pretty much assume that you’re fine and have lifetime immunity and that you will not contract measles and you likely are not carrying it to a newborn. I would say to parents, work with your pediatrician or your family physician and just make sure that your baby gets the two-shot series. To be properly immunized in the United States, you have to get two shots of the measles vaccine. You get one between the ages of 12 and 15 months, and you get the other one between the ages of 4 and 6 years. If you get that two-shot measles vaccine, you are 97% protected against measles for life. So that’s the kind of thing that you want to make sure that you’re following and speaking with your healthcare providers and others in your circle to make sure that’s occurring.
Thank you, Dr. Myers. So it sounds like for the younger grandparents that may be traveling from infected states, like Utah, where there are more cases, they would need to have that conversation. But for the older grandparents, even in a state with concern, they would personally be protected.
Probably, yes.
But I often find that siblings will even travel to meet a new baby. So it could be the new aunt or uncle coming with other children and spouses for the first month to visit. So certainly conversations could be had beyond just grandparents.
Yeah, I don’t want to add to people’s worry and concern, but one of the really tricky things about this infection is that you can be a carrier of the measles virus if you’re infected. So let’s say you’re sick and you’re going to become sick with measles. You probably won’t develop symptoms for about a week. For that week, you’ll be free of fever or the telltale rash. Many babies and children – their manifestation of measles will basically be diarrhea, stomach cramps, fussiness, crying, that kind of thing, before they develop a fever or the characteristic rash. Once the rash happens, pretty much anyone can make a diagnosis. So the concern again is looking at the community that you’re in and realizing your own vaccination status, and if you become infected, that you can actually pass that on and be contagious to other people and not know it because you won’t be sick. You won’t be showing signs of illness for a little while. So that’s the tricky part about this disease.
That is tricky. And when you’re saying that it would be a week or so later that you’re seeing symptoms, would it be similar to the pandemic when you register with the health department if you’ve been exposed so things can be tracked? Or are you talking to your provider?
Yes. You should. It’s interesting; I think the pandemic is a good metaphor. So you want to self-isolate, and you want to be responsible in reporting the fact that you probably have measles to your local health department, because they need to track and follow that pretty closely. The responsible, ethical thing to do would be exactly what you outlined. Self-isolate; don’t be around other people, and call your health department and tell them what you suspect, as well as calling your own doctor to have a conversation with them.
This is also important because unlike the flu or COVID-19 – I hate to say this, but there’s nothing they can do for you for measles. There’s no antiviral. There’s no Tamiflu. There’s no particular medication like we have for COVID-19 to shorten the period. You kind of have to suffer through measles, probably take acetaminophen or something for fever, make sure that you’re able to keep your fluids up, and deal with the symptoms. The actual illness will run its course in about a week to ten days, knock on wood, no complications. But there’s no antivirals. There’s no real medication or antibiotic once you have measles.
Very helpful. You have a new book out, in addition to your first book, Covidology. So tell us a bit more about your new book.
So the book is called The Vaccine Bible: A Comprehensive and Common Sense Guide to What Keeps Us Safe From the Flu, Measles, Hepatitis, and More. And I wrote this book because believe it or not, in the marketplace right now, there are no basic science reference books where you can just look up something – again, the measles or hepatitis or influenza or Gardasil, which is a cancer-preventing vaccine for children. I want it to fill a void of information because there is so much misinformation these days, and there’s a lot of worry and a lot of concern. And what I really wanted to do is I wanted to reassure people. Let’s say measles, since we’ve been having this conversation: we’ve been using the measles vaccine since 1963, over 63 years. Billions of doses of this vaccine have been given worldwide, and it’s an important vaccine because as I said, the disease is terrible. There is no antiviral or antibiotic. Of a thousand cases, about one to three people will actually die from measles, and we’re in the current outbreak that’s been going on now for almost a year and a half. So I wrote the book to actually fill that void, to kind of reassure people. And listen, again, you can have an opinion and you can go to various different sources, but I think it’s important to understand the science, the background, and the history of vaccines, our immune systems, and the world of germs and infectious diseases, and I do that in The Vaccine Bible. I kind of give you a primer on biology, the immune system. I talk about infectious diseases. But the heart of the book – it’s called the Vaccs Facts, from Anthrax to Zika, literally A to Z, I will give you a good overview on every single FDA-approved vaccine in the United States today that you can read about. And so that’s what The Vaccine Bible is.
I feel like a lot of the vaccine books are outdated, so the fact that you have evidence-based information, resources – people can make decisions with the information that you’re directing them to. And it seems to apply to multiple audiences, from families to healthcare professionals to doulas and nannies and anyone who is working with families.
Yes. So let me say a couple things about the topical nature of it. I want people to appreciate that – first of all, let me say what is a vaccine. I mean, a vaccine essentially is, for most cases, a fluid that contains a substance called an antigen. And antigen is actually a word that means “antibody generator.” And the antigen basically teaches the immune system how to recognize the actual germ, should it present itself in an infection to the vaccinated person. Vaccines differ in how antigens are created. And so with the COVID-19 vaccine, there was a very unique way using something called messenger RNA technology to develop these antigens. People need to understand, there have been so many advances in how vaccines have been developed safely and effectively and the science that supports that. So I wanted to bring all that information to a general audience. I also wanted healthcare professionals to have a reliable source to discuss these matters with their patients. Again, let me just say – truth in advertising – you can go to the websites. You can look things up yourself. There’s a billion places you could ask. I wanted to give you context, background. I’m a doctor. I’m a dad. I’ve worked with doctors and patients. I have no skin in the game, other than I want to provide the best, most accurate and up to date information on a technology that I feel is one of humankind’s greatest achievements, to be honest, vaccines, which have been around in our modern era for many, many decades, but really, the first vaccines were developed in the late 18th century. So we’ve been living with vaccines as a technology for a long, long time.
So how can our listeners find your book, The Vaccine Bible? Is it available in paperback or hardcover? What versions do you have right now?
They can go to www.drmikemyers.com and that will bring you to my website, and there you’ll find how you can basically go to a bookstore or Amazon or Barnes & Noble. You can preorder the book. The book will drop on Tuesday, July 28th. I just believe there’s a paper copy, and then there will be an electronic version of the book. I don’t think there’s a hardcover. I think it’s just paper and electronic versions of the book. But you can go ahead and preorder it now. It will be delivered in July. That will be great, actually, and the book is really written for your audience. It’s written for parents. It’s written for doulas. It’s written for moms and grandparents. And it’s really meant to be basic, accessible, a general resource. I went to great pains to not use a lot of high-faluting jargon, a bunch of words. But there’s a glossary; there are abbreviations. It’s all there. And don’t be scared of the science; it’s all there. It’s good. All is well. I kind of take you through various aspects of vaccines, infections, germs, the immune system, so you kind of really understand what you’re dealing with, and then you can go straight to the Vaccs Facts and you can look things up in terms of your own interest. So that’s how you find it.
Well, I will definitely order a copy and include it in our client resource list and doula resource list. I’m so glad that this book now exists!
I am honored and very grateful that you invited me, that we had this really great conversation, and that this can be a resource to your listeners. And listen, if you start getting questions and things come up, I am happy to come back again. Not surprisingly, I’m passionate and I’m supportive and I’m an advocate for this great tool that honestly has gotten a bad reputation. Let me just say that, and there’s no need. All is well.
Thank you, Dr. Myers, and we’ll have to have you on again!
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