Alternate Title

Unvaccinated by Doubt: How COVID-19 Governance Sparked a Measles Revival

Authors

Ellen Black, Belmont UniversityFollow

Keywords

Health Law and Policy, Law and Politics, Law and Society, Medical Jurisprudence

Abstract

A measles outbreak occurred in the United States this year, with measle cases reaching the highest levels in over two decades, even though the disease had been declared eliminated in 2000. In large part, this measles resurgence can be traced to unvaccinated individuals who have chosen to disregard public health officials' vaccination guidance. Clearly, the public has lost trust in their governmental public health officials. As the next disease outbreak looms, the need for restoration of trust becomes imperative.

This article demonstrates how the government's actions during COVID-19 further led to this lack of trust, by providing conflicting guidance as to face masking requirements, by mandating the COVID-19 vaccine without acknowledging natural immunity, and by the inconsistency of lockdown parameters. Additionally, the government coordinated with social media companies to censor the information available to the public regarding COVID-19, as alleged in the Murthy v. Missouri U.S. Supreme Court opinion. These confounding governmental actions ultimately resulted in the public losing significant trust in their officials. The path to restoring trust has many different avenues, but this article concludes that the clearest path forward is to ensure transparency in governmental actions and to return to scientific debate and discourse. If this path is not taken, the public will continue to ignore the public health officials, and the country's health will further decline.

Recommended Citation

Ellen Black, Unvaccinated by Doubt: How COVID-19 Governance Sparked a Measles Revival, 20 FIU L. Rev. 327 (2025), https://doi.org/10.25148/lawrev.20.1.9.