Too young for the MMR shot, babies become 'sitting ducks' in measles
outbreaks
[April 10, 2026]
By DEVI SHASTRI and LAURA UNGAR
LANDRUM, South Carolina (AP) — With baby Arthur too young for the
measles vaccine and a sibling due in June, the Otwells grew nervous when
the threat of the highly contagious virus started factoring into their
grocery run.
“We go to the Costco that was kind of a hotbed,” said John Otwell, who
knew about the state health department's warnings of public exposures at
the store. “A lot of people just don’t get it; they think it’s just a
cold. It’s not.”
By Arthur’s 9-month checkup, the South Carolina outbreak had exploded
into the nation's worst in more than 35 years, surpassing last year's in
Texas. That meant that under state guidance, Arthur could get his first
dose of the MMR vaccine — for measles, mumps and rubella — earlier than
the usual 12 to 15 months old. Their new baby won’t be able to get the
shot until at least 6 months — a prospect that worries parents of
infants wherever measles spreads.
Babies too young to be vaccinated are among the most vulnerable in a
measles outbreak. The disease can wreak havoc on their fragile bodies,
making them so sick they stop eating and drinking. They can develop
pneumonia or brain swelling, and sometimes die.
Babies depend entirely on herd immunity — at least 95% of a community
must be vaccinated to prevent measles outbreaks. But dropping
vaccination rates have eroded protection in South Carolina and across
the nation. In Spartanburg County, the outbreak's epicenter, less than
90% of students have gotten required vaccines.
“Babies become sitting ducks,” said Dr. Deborah Greenhouse, a Columbia
pediatrician. “The burden is on all of us to protect all of us.”
But increasingly, some policymakers and officials push a view of
vaccination as an issue of individual freedom and parents' rights,
rather than one of public health to safeguard the population as a whole.
At the federal level, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime
anti-vaccine crusader, has sought to remake vaccine policy and oversaw
billions in public health cuts. And though a temporary ruling from a
federal judge has slowed his momentum, a raft of bills has been
introduced in states, including South Carolina, that threaten to further
reduce vaccination rates.
South Carolina’s measles outbreak, totaling about 1,000 cases, has
slowed. But measles is spreading in many states, with 17 outbreaks this
year and 48 last year, and the U.S. on the verge of losing its status as
a country that has eliminated measles.
Doctors work to protect the youngest against measles
Dr. Jessica Early never thought she’d have to deal with measles, but the
pediatrician feared for her patients and her own baby when it popped up
in her Greer community. She and other doctors began offering an approved
infant MMR dose as early as 6 months old. Her practice also started
giving the second MMR dose — usually for ages 4 to 6 years old — early.
To the chagrin of many doctors, no one knows how many South Carolina
infants have gotten measles or been hospitalized by it.
State officials will disclose only that 253 of the 997 cases were among
children 4 and younger; they say they won’t break cases down further for
confidentiality reasons. It’s not uncommon to group statistics this way.
Officials also don’t know exactly how many infants were hospitalized
with the virus because, as in some other states, hospitals aren't
required to report measles-related admissions.
Across the state, doctors said they got many questions about whether it
was safe to bring infants to waiting rooms or day care.
Thomas Compton — regional director of Miss Tammy’s Little Learning
Center, a child care network operating across the outbreak region — said
18 parents pulled children out of his facilities, though they had no
confirmed cases. Some abandoned deposits days before their kids were
scheduled to start, forcing the company to lay off a teacher.
Although licensed day cares must require vaccines under state law,
families can easily get religious exemptions. About a fifth of Miss
Tammy's 300 children have vaccine waivers.
When measles surged, Compton said state officials gave little guidance.
His staff scrubbed down surfaces, as they did when COVID-19 was raging;
tracked local measles cases on Facebook; and relied on Google for
information about the disease.
“A lot of parents were really stressed out,” Compton said. “Anytime that
we had a little sickness going on or something, they were like, ‘Do you
think it’s the measles?’”
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Daren Chandler holds his 12-month-old daughter as she has blood
drawn for testing, before receiving a measles shot at Tiger
Pediatrics in Easley, S.C., on March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mary
Conlon)
 State legislation would prohibit
vaccines for children under 2
Last year, an Associated Press investigation found that Trump
administration officials were directing activists to push
anti-science legislation in statehouses. Nationally, around 350
anti-vaccine bills were introduced as of late October, AP found,
including at least eight in South Carolina.
This year, a state bill would prohibit requiring
vaccines for children under 2.
“In other words, it would get rid of those requirements in the day
cares,” pediatrician Greenhouse said. “And for people like me, that
is a gut punch that is terrifying.”
In a subcommittee discussion, Republican State Sen. Carlisle Kennedy
said his bill aims to protect parents’ rights. His baby was born in
August without working kidneys and got vaccines on a personalized
schedule, in coordination with doctors.
“We didn’t want to put vaccines in his body before his body was able
to survive them,” he said.
Opponents countered that herd immunity protects children in these
situations.
The Senate subcommittee advanced the legislation. Greenhouse fears
it has momentum.
"In the climate that we are currently living in, I think any bill
potentially could have legs," she said. “It is our job to do our
absolute best to make sure that those legs don’t go anywhere.”
Whether the bill becomes law, doctors say this sort of legislation
fuels vaccine skepticism and confusion. While the American Academy
of Pediatrics advises giving babies all the vaccines they’ve gotten
for years, some parents tell Greenhouse they know the government has
called for fewer.
“They don’t actually know who they can trust,” she said.
South Carolina, like other states, has made nonmedical vaccine
exemptions easier to get, noted Dr. Martha Edwards, president of the
state's American Academy of Pediatrics chapter. In the outbreak's
epicenter, religious exemptions have more than doubled since 2020.
Statewide, 4% of school-age students have such exemptions in
2025-26.
“Parental choice is a big buzzword in a lot of the Southern states,”
Edwards said. But the choice not to vaccinate, she said, impacts
other parents’ rights to keep their children safe.
Nationwide, protection fades as measles spreads
Doctors expect things will only get worse.
In the first three months of 2026, the U.S. logged 1,671 measles
cases. That’s 73% of the total from 2025, the worst year for the
virus in more than three decades. In November, international health
officials will determine whether measles is still considered
eliminated in the U.S.
National MMR vaccination rates – which dropped to 92.5% among
kindergartners in the 2024-25 school year, from 95.2% in 2019-20 –
obscure much lower rates in certain communities. At one Spartanburg
County school, 21% of kids received all required vaccines.
Doctors worry it’s just a matter of time before all sorts of
vaccine-preventable diseases threaten lives like they did a century
ago.
“The whole concept of immunization is one of the best things that
has ever happened to medicine,” Greenhouse said. “To see that we are
actually going backwards is just confounding.”
Helen Kaiser, who lives in the outbreak area, vaccinated her twin
2-year-old boys early to protect them and the community.
“I would never forgive myself,” she said, “if I knew that my son had
gotten another baby very sick and it was something I could have
prevented.”
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Ungar reported from Louisville, Kentucky.
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