When Dr. Christopher Kuo was 7 years old, his oldest brother, Sammy, became gravely ill and rapidly deteriorated into a vegetative state. The cause: a progressive brain disorder related to measles, which Sammy had contracted as an infant – just two months before he was scheduled to receive the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.
The experience was traumatic for the entire family, recalled Kuo, now a pediatric oncologist for the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He witnessed the devastating effects of the disorder – subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) – which can strike up to 10 years after an initial measles infection. Sammy lost the ability to speak, became glassy-eyed and his body deteriorated, with his fingers and limbs becoming flexed and rigid.
Looking back at his childhood, Kuo still recalls mixing the liquid nourishment for Sammy’s nasogastric feeding tube and regularly helping his grandfather with his brother’s physical therapy. When Kuo was 17, Sammy passed away after living with SSPE for a decade.
“As I grew older, I realized this was all completely preventable,” Kuo told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol. He said vaccines are the first line of defense, “priming our body to better protect us against many known infections” – including measles, SSPE or other complications.
Vaccines help protect not only the individual people who get them, they also contribute to “herd immunity” via high vaccination rates, which helps protect the health of the greater community, said Kuo – including those who can’t get vaccinated because they are immunocompromised, like many of his cancer patients, and those still too young to get certain vaccines, like his brother.
Vaccines help prevent outbreaks, explained Kuo – like the measles outbreak in Taiwan in 1985 that exposed his brother to the initial infection that later led to excruciating and deadly consequences, and the outbreaks currently happening in select regions of the United States.
There have been 1,001 confirmed measles cases in 30 U.S. states so far in 2025, with the biggest outbreaks reported in Texas, which has had 717 cases, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Texas Department of State Health Services.
In LA County, there have been four confirmed measles cases this year involving residents or visitors, according to the LA County Department of Public Health (DPH), which is recommending that residents who are not immune to measles get the MMR vaccine, especially if they are planning to travel this summer.
Vaccine Hesitancy
Doctors recommend two doses of the MMR vaccine or the MMRV vaccine, which also protects against varicella (chicken pox), which are 97% effective at preventing measles, according to the CDC. Because the virus is airborne and highly contagious, a community vaccination rate of 95% is required to reach herd immunity and help avoid outbreaks like those happening in Texas.
Unfortunately, said Kuo, “vaccine hesitancy” is a growing phenomenon that is contributing to current measles cases, stemming largely from misinformation shared among anxious parents or disseminated via social media or debunked reports, including a retracted and universally discredited 1998 publication by Andrew Wakefield linking the MMR vaccine to autism.
“As a [medical doctor], sometimes I struggle when parents tell me that they don’t want to get their kids vaccinated or they want to delay [or modify] the vaccination schedule … because of X, Y and Z,” recounted Kuo. “I find it difficult to balance between how much to share in terms of what I personally experienced, because I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to scare them.
“But the reality is that [vaccines] have worked so well that most people forget what the devastating [effects] can be,” he continued. “I personally have experienced the complications of measles and how it wrecked my family and what I had to go through growing up. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.”
Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, there were an estimated 3 to 4 million measles cases each year in the U.S. alone, resulting in 48,000 hospitalizations, 1,000 cases of encephalitis and 400 to 500 deaths annually. After the measles vaccine became widely distributed, reported cases dropped by more than 97% between 1965 and 1968.
Given the current rate of confirmed measles cases, 2025 appears on track to have the highest number of measles cases in 25 years, according to CDC data. There have been three measles-related deaths so far in 2025, the nation’s first measles deaths in over a decade.
Measles infections can lead to several potential complications, including ear infections, diarrhea, pneumonia, encephalitis or even death, especially for unvaccinated or undervaccinated children under age 5, adults over 20, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.
Kuo said he fears the current measles outbreaks could also result in an increase in latent complications – including SSPE, which is always fatal – a few years down the line.
“And honestly, there’s just no cure for some of these [measles complications], and that is the most devastating thing, because once it happens, then you can’t really do anything,” he said.
Kuo said he encourages fellow medical professionals to respond to parents’ concerns about vaccines by listening to their fears and responding to their questions, rather than pressuring them.
“We do our best as physicians to just make sure that everyone is protected,” said Kuo, adding that he tries to approach difficult conversations with fearful parents “in apositive way.”
“The most important job that I do, no matter the situation, is just to focus on positivity and how we [can] bring the community together,” he added. He said he avoids categorizing people as “anti-vaxxers” or pro-vaccination, because “I think that divide just makes everything worse.”
Nevertheless, Kuo said his primary goal as a physician is to protect his patients, and he will continue advocating for vaccines and speaking out against misinformation because “vaccines work.”
Had the circumstances of his young age been different, “Vaccines could have saved my brother’s life,” said Kuo.