Ex-CDC Director Pushes Extra MMR Shot for Babies, as Arizona Reports Suspected Measles Case Was ‘Rare’ Vaccine Reaction

Some infectious disease experts — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) former director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky — are pushing health officials to recommend an extra dose of the MMR vaccine for babies ages 6-11 months who live in or travel to areas of the U.S. with measles outbreaks, according to Medpage Today.

The news comes as a suspected measles case in a 1-year-old child in Pima County, Arizona, this week turned out to be a reaction to the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine — not measles.

According to a Pima County news release, reactions to the MMR vaccine are “rare and do not carry the same risk as community-acquired measles.”

The Pima County Health Department did not specify the toddler’s symptoms but said state and county health authorities — and the local hospital where the child was treated — “took precautions in the child’s treatment as if it were an infectious case.”

Arizona has not reported any measles cases so far in 2025, the release said.

The CDC’s current Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule recommends children receive their first dose of the MMR vaccine between the ages of 2-15 months, and their second dose between ages 4-6 years.

Infants 6-11 months old who are about to travel internationally are advised to get an extra dose before traveling.

Walensky and colleagues argued in op-eds published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and STAT News that the recommendation should be changed due to the uptick in U.S. measles cases.

Some states experiencing measles outbreaks have already issued local advisories recommending that infants 6-11 months get an MMR shot, but there is no such national recommendation in place, Walensky and colleagues said.

“Pediatric immunization guidelines should be revised in light of evolving epidemiologic trends,” they wrote in JAMA. “We therefore propose updating the existing recommendation for an additional early MMR dose to infants aged 6 to 11 months traveling to any region with increased probability of measles exposure, whether international or domestic.”

Medpage Today said several infectious disease doctors — including Dr. Mary Caserta, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases — agreed with Walensky and her colleagues.

“If we have data showing that there’s an increased risk of measles in the United States, I’m definitely in favor of reviewing our immunization guidelines to see what we can do to best protect our children,” Caserta said.

No MMR safety data cited to support giving shot to young babies

In their op-eds, Walensky and colleagues made no mention of safety data underlying their proposal to give the MMR shot to 6-month-olds.

Heather Ray, science and research analyst/administrator with Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said that many people assume the MMR vaccine is safer than the measles, mumps and rubella infections.

“However, there are serious red flags regarding the safety and research behind the vaccine,” Ray said.

According to a collection of documents recently released by Physicians for Informed Consent, the risk of permanent disability or death from the MMR vaccine may be greater than the risk posed by measles, mumps or rubella infection. That’s because vaccine safety studies conducted so far haven’t been large enough.

Research has shown that in some instances, the MMR vaccine causes febrile seizures, anaphylaxis, meningitis, encephalitis, thrombocytopenia, arthralgia and vasculitis.

Ray called the risk of serious adverse events following MMR vaccination “concerning” and noted that “only a small percentage” are reported in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

As of the end of January, there have been 41 deaths reported in VAERS following MMR or MMRV vaccination since 2015.

MMRV is a combination of measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (commonly known as chickenpox) vaccines, according to the CDC. The MMRV’s age and dosage recommendations are currently the same as the MMR vaccine.

VAERS reports do not prove a causal relationship between a vaccine and an injury because the reports lack verification. However, underreporting to VAERS is a known problem. Researchers previously determined that the number of injuries reported to VAERS is less than 1%.

Ray also said:

“We don’t know the MMR vaccine’s long-term effects and health outcomes because the clinical trials only followed the subjects for less than six weeks, and the current formulation hasn’t even been safety tested.”

‘Manufacturing of fear is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry’

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., CHD senior research scientist, voiced similar concerns.

The CDC childhood vaccine schedule is already “aggressive — some would find it reckless,” Jablonowski said. He added:

“Even the aggressive schedule does not recommend the live-virus MMR vaccine any earlier than 12 months old. This is not a coincidence of logistics. MMR is not recommended for younger than 12 months old because even the vaccine-zealous recommenders do not find the risks appropriate.”

In their JAMA op-ed, Walensky and colleagues noted that many parents are concerned about adding a third MMR shot to the schedule. “However,” they wrote, “this third dose can be especially critical because infants younger than 1 year face a heightened risk of severe measles-related complications such as pneumonia, encephalitis, and death.”

Jablonowski said if Walensky and her fellow authors are successful in persuading the medical community to administer the third dose to young babies, “they will have again demonstrated that immunization recommendations can be knee-jerk reactions to fear.”

“The manufacturing of fear is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry,” he said.

Walensky acknowledged that a third MMR dose would cost money. But she argued that it “can be cost-effective compared with the resources required to treat infections and contain outbreaks.”

In a March 31 op-ed for The Conversation, Peter Kasson, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, said that measles can “ravage the immune system and brain, causing long-term damage.”

Georgia Institute of Technology is one of many academic institutions that fund The Conversation.

Kasson emphasized that measles is one of the most contagious diseases on Earth. He wrote:

“One person who has it will infect nine out of 10 people nearby if those people are unvaccinated. A two-dose regimen of the vaccine, however, is 97% effective at preventing measles.”

David Speicher, Ph.D., a molecular virologist and epidemiologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, said he didn’t have an issue with the “scientific fact” presented in Kasson’s article.

Speicher noted that while measles can cause severe disease, “the risk of getting that severe disease is low and the risk of transmitting or getting infected in a population where most of the population is immunized for measles is also extremely low.”

Speicher said, “It appears like most of the measles articles are attempting to drive the fear like was done for COVID.”