Anguished parents. Doctors in tears. Utah's long measles outbreak takes a toll. [View all]

(Amy Maxmen | KFF Health News) Kandace Hyland, a marketing director in Utah, was surprised to learn that daycare staff in the state don’t have to be vaccinated against measles, even amid an ongoing outbreak. “I’m nervous sending her to daycare every day,” she says of her baby.


Salt Lake City • Ben Dowse hadn’t expected to treat measles when he became a doctor, but there he was, examining a newborn exposed to the virus in the womb. The infected mother had given birth just hours earlier. The hospital had alerted Dowse to the case before delivery, and he’d braced himself for the worst.

Dowse wore a full-body protective suit with a plastic face mask. As a pediatrician in southern Utah, he couldn’t risk getting even a mild infection, because many of his patients are babies too young for measles vaccines or children whose parents choose not to protect them with immunizations. “I went in looking like a scientist in E.T.,” he said. Measles can cause brain damage, deafness, or death in newborns. If the baby entered the world with a measles rash and fever, Dowse was prepared to give the infant a spinal tap to assess the risk of neurological damage.

Luckily, flushed and crying, the baby looked healthy. To keep it that way, Dowse wanted to inject the baby with concentrated antibodies against the measles virus. To his surprise, the parents objected, promising to give their child “all kinds of vitamin A,” Dowse said. He begged them not to, saying, “You can’t see it on the surface, but the baby’s body is fighting the measles.” They were afraid of vaccines, so Dowse explained that antibodies were different and that they would stop measles from replicating in the infant.

“That shot is going to basically give the baby ammo to fight,” Dowse said. The parents relented. A couple of days later, they left the hospital with a child who had narrowly skirted an infection that killed many thousands of babies a century ago. Nonetheless, Dowse said he doubted they would be returning for childhood vaccinations to protect their baby against a bevy of illnesses. Like more than a dozen Utah doctors and health officials who spoke with KFF Health News, Dowse has adjusted his expectations.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/health/2026/06/15/anguished-parents-doctors-tears/