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We Will Eradicate Measles

2025-02-28 · explainer · Hank · 8:29 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Health (also: US politics & society) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, civic or action cta, heavy topic

Hank argues that measles can be eradicated because only humans catch it, explains why it is harder than smallpox (more infectious, two doses, less feared), and says its biggest advantage now is that we forgot, reading Roald Dahl's account of his daughter's death; he then condemns the halt of USAID funding and shares a script for calling Congress.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why measles can be eradicated (no non-human host) and why it is harder than smallpox: infectiousness, two doses, 95% coverage, less deadly

  • ★★★ Hank says humanity can eliminate measles: it has already been done in a country of over 300 million people, and what can be done for 300 million can be done for 8 billion. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says measles had been eliminated in a country of over 300 million people. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says eradicating measles is not easy, whatever people may say. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says a disease with a non-human reservoir can return even after eradication from every person, as when someone picks up a prairie dog and gets bubonic plague, which happens. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Hank says smallpox could be eradicated because only humans catch it, and measles likewise can only be caught by humans, which is why it can definitely be eradicated. — 00:00:46
  • ★★ Hank says measles is more infectious than smallpox: a smallpox patient maybe infected three to six others on average, a measles patient 12 to 18. (hedged) — 00:00:46
  • ★★ Hank says that when a child in a classroom has measles, 90% of the unvaccinated children there will also get it. — 00:00:46
  • ★★ Hank says not everyone can be vaccinated: very ill children are not recommended to get the measles vaccine, yet we still want to protect them. — 00:01:15 · vaccine
  • ★★ Hank says the measles vaccine, though very good, protects only about 90% of people after the first dose, so a second dose is needed, nearly twice as complicated. — 00:01:15 · vaccine
  • ★★ Hank says that because measles is so infectious, protection must reach about 95% of people, a bar smallpox did not need, which is why smallpox could be eliminated. — 00:01:44
  • ★★ Hank says another trick that makes measles harder to eradicate is that it is less awful than smallpox, which carries a high chance of death and, for survivors, permanent facial scars, though measles is much worse than most diseases people have had. — 00:02:11
  • ★★ As an illustration, Hank says that if everyone in America were infected at once, about 700,000 would die of measles but more than 70 million of smallpox. — 00:02:11 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says the motivation to eradicate smallpox was higher: it needed one dose, measles needs two, and the less deadly, less disfiguring disease gives people less impetus to vaccinate. — 00:02:40

00:03:09 — We forgot: Roald Dahl's account of Olivia's death, luck of living now, eventual eradication, vaccine scares answered by children dying

  • ★★ Hank says we proved we could do it, partly riding the success of smallpox eradication, and we can do it for measles too. — 00:03:09
  • ★★★ Hank says the biggest advantage measles has now that it lacked then is that we forgot. — 00:03:09
  • ★★★ Roald Dahl (quoted): Hank reads Roald Dahl's account: his eldest daughter Olivia caught measles at seven, and while recovering grew sleepy, fell unconscious within an hour and died within 12 hours, in 1962. — 00:03:09
  • ★★ Roald Dahl (quoted): In the passage Dahl says doctors still could not help a child with that reaction, but parents can insist their child is immunized, which he could not do for Olivia. — 00:04:11 · vaccine
  • ★★ Hank says Roald Dahl, author of many of his favorite stories, lost his daughter one year before the measles vaccine was introduced. — 00:04:36 · vaccine
  • ★★★ Hank says we are so lucky to be alive right now. — 00:05:02
  • ★★ Hank says he need not worry about Orin getting measles, since he is a healthy kid who has had both doses. — 00:05:02 · Orin Green, vaccine
  • ★★ Hank says children under a year old and children whose illnesses prevent vaccination do have to worry about measles. — 00:05:02 · vaccine
  • ★★★ Hank predicts humanity will eventually eradicate measles: they will worry until then, it can be done, that world is better, and we'll get there, though it is hard. — 00:05:02
  • ★★ Hank says eradication is hard because measles is so infectious that even a very good vaccine needs two doses, and two doses are hard to deliver everywhere on Earth. — 00:05:02 · vaccine, Earth
  • ★★ Hank says it is also hard because we forget: in 1962 measles deaths were common enough to terrify, but before this year (2025) the last US measles death was in 2015. — 00:05:31 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says, hating it, that what pushes back hardest against phony vaccine-danger stories is not his angry videos but children falling ill and dying, which makes vaccination rates rise again. — 00:05:31 · vaccine

00:06:08 — Halted USAID funding for kids' disease survival, Hank's anger, and his script for calling Republican representatives

  • ★★★ Hank predicts countries will hover around 95% measles vaccination, dipping below into outbreaks and climbing back to 96, until measles is eradicated. — 00:06:08 · vaccine
  • ★★★ Hank says beyond the information battle we are losing the ability to help children elsewhere survive measles, malaria, tuberculosis and other preventable diseases, with no clear reason why. — 00:06:08 · malaria, tuberculosis
  • ★★ Hank says everyone seems to agree USAID should continue its life-saving missions, including Marco Rubio, who runs USAID. (hedged) — 00:06:08 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says Congress legally passed the laws funding USAID's work, yet 90% of USAID's funding has been halted. — 00:06:08 · United States Congress, United States
  • ★★ Hank says he is trying to stay calm but feels we are whiny babies who have forgotten how miraculous a world with exoplanets, electric cars and measles vaccines is. — 00:06:56 · vaccine
  • ★★ Hank says he does not think his anger does very much. — 00:06:56
  • ★★ Hank says his elected representatives are all Republicans, none of whom are pushing back against this. — 00:06:56 · Republican Party
  • ★★★ Hank shares on screen the talking points he uses when calling his representatives so viewers can call theirs in Congress; a script, a list and ways to find them are in the description. — 00:06:56 · United States Congress
  • ★★★ In his script Hank tells his representative he believes they believe in the founding document: Congress creates laws and decides spending, and executive orders are not laws. — 00:07:27 · United States Congress
  • ★★ Hank's script says representatives have principles and responsibilities beyond loyalty to the president, and sitting back harms the country's future and their party's. — 00:07:27
  • ★★★ Hank's script says USAID helps America by increasing its influence, making other countries more stable and making it less likely disease outbreaks reach the US. — 00:07:56 · United States
  • ★★ Hank's script predicts his representatives will eventually stand up to Donald Trump taking away their power, asking whether they will be among the first, as he hopes. — 00:07:56 · Donald Trump, United States Congress

00:08:26 — Sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description's talking points say treating executive orders like laws degrades separation of powers, the reason US democracy has lasted, and degrades the power of Congress. — video description · United States Congress
  • ★★ The description's talking points say nobody seems to know who decided to suspend most of USAID's life-saving work, which is scary, very weird and illegal. — video description · United States

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: measles · Olivia Dahl · United States Agency for International Development · vaccine

Also: People: Donald Trump · Marco Rubio · Orin Green · Roald Dahl

Works: Constitution of the United States · Measles: A Dangerous Illness

Organizations: Republican Party · United States Congress

Concepts: Electric car · executive order · exoplanet · herd immunity · malaria · misinformation · Plague (disease) · smallpox · tuberculosis

Places: Earth · United States

Only in the description or credits: separation of powers

Also centred on measles: I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill

Also centred on United States Agency for International Development: Our $80,000,000 Bet · What Trump's Doing · Chatting with ... a U.S. Senator?

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