The Make America Healthy Again movement gave Americans the gift of measles exposure for the holidays, two states’ medical authorities are warning.
The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDPH) and the Massachusetts Department of Health (DPH) both warned that people with the once-eradicated, highly contagious disease traveled through their states’ top airports in December.
The NJDPH said that a passenger with measles stopped in New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport on Dec. 12, while Massachusetts’ DPH said that an unvaccinated traveler from Texas with measles visited Boston’s Logan International Airport on Christmas Eve.
The NJDPH’s statement warns that any individuals who visited Newark’s Terminal B and Terminal C between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Dec. 12 should consider themselves exposed. It also warns that symptoms of measles could develop as late as Jan. 2, 2026.
The Massachusetts DPH statement warns that potentially exposed individuals could see symptoms up to 21 days after exposure, which would be Jan. 14.
Massachusetts’ DPH told exposed travelers that if they develop symptoms of measles, they should contact their healthcare provider because “visiting a healthcare facility may put others at risk and should be avoided if possible.”
However, it also notes that the risk of Massachusetts residents contracting measles “is low because the vaccination rate in the state is high.”
“Anyone who has had measles in the past or has received two doses of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine is unlikely to develop measles even if exposed,” it says.
One dose of the MMR vaccine is 93% effective against measles, and two doses raise that number to 97%, according to the CDC.
America was declared measles-free in 2000 due to high vaccination rates. Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, in the average year, 400 to 500 people died from the illness, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 suffered encephalitis, according to the CDC.
However, the Make America Healthy Again movement, headed by HHS Secretary and noted vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., spent 2025 eroding vaccine protections.
In March, as America’s first measles outbreak in 30 years raged through Texas and other states, Kennedy, 71, longed for his youth when ”everybody got measles,” suggesting that herd immunity was more effective than vaccination. He was 9 when the vaccine was introduced.
Despite the clear evidence suggesting widespread vaccination against measles had eradicated the illness, Kennedy baselessly suggested that the vaccine’s effectiveness wanes over time, causes deaths every year, and leads to all cases of the disease.
There have been 2,065 confirmed cases of measles in America in 2025, which is the highest number since 1992.
Texas’ measles outbreak started in Gaines County, where one of every four residents is not vaccinated against measles, and only 82% of kindergartners are vaccinated against the disease—far below the 95% community vaccination rate the CDC says is needed to prevent outbreaks. Despite this, Texas and other red states worked to roll back vaccine standards in schools.
Florida removed the measles vaccine mandate for schoolchildren in September. The state’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, compared a vaccine mandate to “slavery.”
On Dec. 8, four days before New Jersey’s Newark airport measles exposure, Kennedy did pull-ups in Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to kick off his and Transportation Sean Duffy’s “Make Travel Family Friendly Again” campaign.
