The mainstream news coverage of measles outbreaks follows a familiar pattern. A handful of cases, a doctor warning about declining vaccination rates, and an immediate recommendation to get two doses of the MMR vaccine, which happens to be 97% effective. It reads like a pharmaceutical ad because, as Del points out, it functionally is one.

Understand the actual history of the measles vaccine program. The goal was never just personal protection. The goal set in the 1960s was eradication, the complete elimination of measles from the planet. That program has failed by its own stated measure, and virologists and immunologists warned at the time that pushing hard against such a contagious and historically mild virus carried its own risks. Sound familiar?

When seven cases of a rash in one state and eleven in another become a national news emergency, and the answer is always the same product from the same industry that funds 70% of those news stations' advertising, the question becomes who benefits from the framing?

@delbigtree