A preventable crisis: How vaccine funding cuts sparked a measles surge in Texas

In the spring of 2025, West Texas found itself at the heart of a public health crisis that should have never happened. Measles—once declared eliminated in the United States—came roaring back, sweeping through over 20 counties. The cause? Years of stagnant vaccine funding and mounting vaccine hesitancy.

Now, with federal funding cuts looming nationwide, public health experts fear Texas might just be the beginning.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” said Katherine Wells, Health Director in Lubbock, located just 90 minutes from the outbreak’s epicenter. “We haven’t had a strong immunization program that can really do a lot of boots-on-the-ground work for years.”

Indeed, the outbreak wasn’t a fluke—it was the result of years of underfunded immunization efforts. Federal, state, and local governments failed to keep pace with rising costs and growing populations. In Texas, the impact was particularly harsh. While the state’s population has swelled, its vaccine funding has remained flat for over a decade. For example, Lubbock’s immunization grant—unchanged at $254,000 for 15 years—now covers only a fraction of what it once did.

By April 2025, more than 700 measles cases had been reported across the U.S., surpassing the previous year’s total. Texas alone accounted for more than 540 cases, including two child deaths—a 6-year-old from Gaines County and an 8-year-old from Seminole.

Gaines County, where the outbreak began, had just 82% of kindergartners vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella—well below the 95% threshold needed to prevent outbreaks. Even nearby Andrews County, with higher vaccination rates, saw a drop from 99% in 2020 to 97% in 2025.

Vaccination clinics have been overwhelmed. Families traveled over an hour to reach Andrews County’s walk-in clinic—the only one in the area open five days a week. “They’re unable to obtain [vaccines] in the place that they live,” said Gordon Mattimoe, the county’s health director. “There’s an access issue.”

While health departments were temporarily buoyed by COVID-19 relief funds, that support is now vanishing. In March, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a known vaccine skeptic—oversaw a sweeping $2 billion cut in immunization-related funding. This move immediately hit Texas, where local health departments are now grappling with a $125 million shortfall as they battle the measles outbreak.

Dallas County, 350 miles from the epicenter, has already canceled over 50 immunization clinics, many at schools with low vaccination rates. In Lubbock, seven public health positions, including immunization roles, are on the chopping block.

Kennedy has claimed he wants to prevent outbreaks, but he’s yet to deliver a consistent public message supporting vaccines. His department declined to comment on the cuts.

Texas isn’t alone in this crisis. Washington state lost around $20 million in vaccine-related funds, forcing them to cancel over 100 vaccine clinics. Connecticut anticipates losing $26 million, resulting in the termination of 43 local health department contracts, and the shutdown of mobile outreach and educational campaigns.

Even states like Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts—part of the 23-state lawsuit to halt the funding rollback—warn of major disruptions to immunization efforts if the cuts stand.

This crisis underscores a fundamental truth: vaccines don’t work if they don’t reach people. And reaching people requires infrastructure—clinics, nurses, education campaigns, and trust.

“We’re facing a situation where we have to ask, ‘What diseases can we afford to prevent?’” said Dr. Kelly Moore, former director of Tennessee’s immunization program and now head of Immunize.org. “If we don’t invest in them to get them in arms, then we don’t see their benefits.”

The consequences of inaction are already here—rising vaccine hesitancy, collapsing public health infrastructure, and outbreaks of diseases that should be history. The cost of failing to protect communities is being paid in lives lost and trust eroded.

As Dr. Peter Hotez of Texas Children’s Hospital put it: “It’s like a hurricane over warm water. As long as there’s warm water—unvaccinated children—the hurricane will accelerate.”

And it is accelerating. Unless funding and trust are restored, this crisis won’t stop at Texas. It could be coming to a community near you.