When Was the Last Measles Death in the United States?

How many measles deaths have there been in the United States in the past ten years? Dr. Bob Sears has frequently said that there have been none. 

It is easy to see that Dr. Bob is wrong, not even counting the latest death in 2015 2019.

Measles Deaths in the United States

Measles deaths are thought to occur in about 1 in every 500 to 1,000 reported cases. This is not just in developing countries or in people with chronic medical conditions.

Consider that in an outbreak in the United States from 1989 to 1991, amid 55,622 cases, there were 123 deaths.

More recently, measles cases and measles deaths in the United States include:

• 2000 – 86 cases – 1 measles death (infant)  – endemic spread of measles eliminated in U.S.
• 2001 – 116 cases – 1 measles death
• 2002 – 44 cases
• 2003 – 55 cases – 1 measles death (1 year old)
• 2004 – 37 cases – record low number of measles cases
• 2005 – 66 cases – 1 measles death (1 year old)
• 2006 – 55 cases
• 2007 – 43 cases
• 2008 – 140 cases
• 2009 – 71 cases – 2 measles deaths
• 2010 – 63 cases – 2 measles deaths
• 2011 – 220 cases
• 2012 – 55 cases – 2 measles deaths
• 2013 – 187 cases (large outbreak in New York City – 58 cases)
• 2014 – 667 cases (the worst year for measles since 1994, including the largest single outbreak since the endemic spread of measles was eliminated – 377 cases in Ohio)
• 2015 – 188 cases – got off to a strong start with a big outbreak in California – 1 measles death
• 2016 – 86 cases
• 2017 – 120 cases
• 2018 – 375
• 2019 – 1,282 cases – 1 measles death (the worst year for measles since 1992, including the longest and largest single outbreaks since the endemic spread of measles was eliminated)
• 2020 – 13 cases

So that’s 12 measles deaths since 2000 and at least 9 measles deaths since 2005.

One of the last deaths, a woman in Clallam County in Washington, was exposed in an outbreak of mostly unvaccinated people in 2015. The other, a 37-year-old who died with meningitis during the 2019 measles outbreaks.

Why do people say that there have been no measles deaths in the United States in the past 10 years? Whether they are misinformed or intentionally trying to misinform people, they are wrong.

The Last Verifiable Measles Death in the United States

The CDC is actually contributing a bit to the confusion over measles deaths, in that when asked, they have historically said that “the last verifiable death in the United States from acute measles infection occurred in 2003 when there were 2 reported deaths.”

They explain the discrepancy between that statement and other CDC reports, like the recently published “Summary of Notifiable Diseases — United States, 2012,” which clearly documents measles deaths in 2005, 2009, and 2010, by saying that those reports are based on “statistical information about deaths in the United States.”

But that statistical information comes from death certificates that are sent in from all over the United States to the National Vital Statistics System. The system isn’t like VAERS, where just anyone can send in a report. You don’t necessarily have to be a doctor to sign and file a death certificate though either, which is why the CDC is probably hung up on saying that the last verifiable measles deaths were in 2003.

To be more precise when talking about measles deaths in the United States, since it doesn’t seem like the CDC has verified each and every measles death after 2003, it is likely best to say that death certificates have been filed in 2005, 2009 (2), 2010 (2), and 2012 (2) that listed measles as a cause of death code.

Of course, that still means that there have been measles deaths in the United States since 2003, especially now that the CDC actually states that “the last measles death in the United States occurred in 2015.”

Of course, that doesn’t include the last measles death in 2019…

SSPE – More Measles Deaths

Lately, in addition to deaths from acute measles infections, there have been even more deaths from subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE).

About 6 to 8 years after having measles, children with SSPE develop progressive neurological symptoms, including memory loss, behavior changes, uncontrollable movements, and even seizures. As symptoms progress, they may become blind, develop stiff muscles, become unable to walk, and eventually deteriorate to a persistent vegetative state.

Children with SSPE usually die within 1 to 3 years of first developing symptoms, including in the United States:

• 2000 – 5 SSPE deaths
• 2001 – 2 SSPE deaths
• 2002 – 5 SSPE deaths
• 2003 – 0
• 2004 – 1 SSPE death
• 2005 – 2 SSPE deaths
• 2006 – 3 SSPE deaths
• 2007 – 3 SSPE deaths
• 2008 – 3 SSPE deaths
• 2009 – 2 SSPE deaths
• 2010 – 0
• 2011 – 4 SSPE deaths
• 2012 – 1 SSPE death
• 2013 – 1 SSPE death
• 2014 – 0
• 2015 – 1 SSPE death
• 2016 – 0
• 2017 – 0
• 2018 – 2 SSPE deaths
• 2019 – 1 SSPE death

That’s 35 SSPE deaths since 2000 and at least 22 SSPE deaths since 2005. Why so many? Many of them can likely be attributed to the large number of cases associated with measles outbreaks from 1989 to 1991.

Fortunately, as the number of measles cases has been dropping in the post-vaccine era, so have the number of SSPE deaths.

The National Registry for SSPE, reported that there were at least 453 cases between 1960 and 1976. There were 225 deaths from SSPE between 1979 and 1998. The registry wasn’t established until 1969 though, and it is now becoming clear that the risk of developing SSPE is much higher than once thought.

A recent study of measles in Germany has found that the risk of developing SSPE is about 1 in 1,700 to 1 in 3,300 cases of measles.

Other Myths About Measles Deaths

One of the classic measles myths we hear is that measles was disappearing even before the measles vaccine was developed. It is true that measles deaths had been dropping since the turn of the century.

The measles death rate (deaths per 100,000 people) in the United States was:

• 1900 – 13.3 (about 7000 deaths)
• 1910 – 12.4
• 1920 – 8.8
• 1930 – 3.2
• 1935 – 3.1
• 1940 – 0.5
• 1945 – 0.2
• 1950 – 0.3 (468 deaths)
• 1955 – 0.2 (345 deaths)
• 1960 – 0.2 (380 deaths)
• 1963 – first measles vaccine licensed
• 1965 – 0.1 (276 deaths)
• 1970 – 0.0 (89 deaths)
• 1975 – 0.0 (20 deaths)
• 1980 – 0.0 (11 deaths)
• 1985 – 0.0 (4 deaths)

That’s not surprising though. The general death rate had dropped from 17.8 in 1900 to 7.6 in 1960. For infants under age 12 months, the death rate dropped from 162.4 in 1933 to 27 in 1960.

This simply reflects that vaccines were not the only medical technology that helped to save lives in the 20th century and not that measles was already disappearing. Penicillin, insulin, vitamin D, blood typing (allows transfusions of blood that has been typed and cross-matched), dialysis machines, and mechanical ventilators were all discovered in the early 1900s.

If you notice though, the death rate for measles got stuck after the 1940s at about 0.2 to 0.3, even as modern medicine continued to advance. That’s about 300 to 500 measles deaths each year in the United States. This was after World War II and through the 1950s and early 1960s, hardly a time of poor hygiene or poor nutrition or when Americans were without access to medical care.

It took about 20 years for those deaths to start dropping again, and it took the coming of the measles vaccine to do it.

So if we stop vaccinating, we won’t get to 7,000 measles deaths a year again in the United States. Modern medicine has improved a great deal since 1900. We would eventually get to about 320 to 960 measles deaths a year though (using our current population of 320 million people and a measles death rate between 0.1 and 0.3).

Other Facts About Measles Deaths

People still die of measles.

What else do you need to know about measles deaths?

• SSPE is caused by wild type measles. Vaccine strain measles has never been found in the brain tissue of anyone who has ever died of SSPE.
• Although SSPE was first described by Dr. James R. Dawson, JR as a new type of epidemic encephalitis in 1933 (Dawson’s disease), that it is a late complication of a natural measles infection wasn’t discovered until much later.
• People have recently died of measles in other industrial countries too. Basically anywhere there have been measles outbreaks, there have been measles deaths, including Canada, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and France, etc.
• Worldwide, about 400 people die each and every day from measles.

The latest measles deaths we have been hearing about?

Dozens of infants, children, and adults, almost all unvaccinated have died in large outbreaks since the beginning of 2016 in Europe.

Worldwide, measles again surged in 2019, reaching the highest number of reported cases in 23 years. And that came with a record number of deaths too. Worldwide, over 207 500 people died with measles in 2019, with measles deaths jumping nearly 50 percent since 2016.

What To Know about Measles Deaths

Measles is still deadly, even in this era of modern medicine, sanitation and good nutrition.

More on Measles Deaths

• The Myth That Measles Isn’t Deadly
• Who Dies with Measles?
• How Many People Die from Vaccine Preventable Diseases These Days?
• Did Better Hygiene and Sanitation Get Rid of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases?
• Everything You Need to Know About the Measles Vaccine
• What Are the Signs and Symptoms of Measles?
• WHO – Worldwide measles deaths climb 50% from 2016 to 2019 claiming over 207 500 lives in 2019
• CDC – What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations?
• Yep, measles is still a killing disease
• Measles Doesn’t Kill, Except When It Does
• A Death from Measles
• Cruel delayed death from measles
• sadly – another: Aliana has SSPE
• Yep, measles is still a killing disease
• SSPE: A Deadly and Not-That-Rare Complication of Measles
• Yes, California children are dying of measles. Today. It’s called SSPE.
• 35 Measles Deaths in Europe in 12 Month Period
• ECDC – Epidemiological update: Measles – monitoring European outbreaks
• CDC – Summary of Notifiable Diseases — United States, 2012.
• CDC Wonder. About Underlying Cause of Death, 1999-2016
• Study – Epidemiology of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) in Germany from 2003 to 2009: a risk estimation.
• Study – Epidemiology of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). A report of the SSPE registry.
• Notes from the Field: Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis Death — Oregon, 2015
• Measles is not better than autism: Debunking anti-vaccine arguments

Last Updated on April 6, 2024