A Texas church school ranked last in state measles vaccination rates. Its pastor rejoiced
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What you need to know about measles
A measles outbreak is spreading across a Washington county known for choosing not to vaccinate its children, and health officials have declared a public health emergency.
USA TODAY
The power of a vaccine lies in the strength of the community that embraces it as a life-saving medicine - a message that in recent weeks has been challenged by the Trump administration and community leaders around the country.
'We don't necessarily just do (vaccines) for ourselves,' says sociologist Jennifer Reich of the University of Colorado Denver and author of "Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines."
'We do them for the people around us. We do them for our grandparents; we do them for pregnant women at the grocery store for whom rubella can be devastating. It's not necessarily my personal benefit from the vaccine, but the way that I'm part of a community.'
That feeling isn't shared by everyone. Researchers including Reich say recent viral headlines, such as a North Texas pastor publicly boasting on Instagram that his church school ranked lowest in Texas for measles vaccination rates, are disheartening and show the nation heading down a dangerous path.
'Part of Christian values involves caring for those in need, caring for those who are vulnerable,' Reich said. 'To see that lost in favor of this underscoring of individual choice over caregiving and an ethos of collective care is disappointing.'
'You are putting the safety of children at risk'
In his March 5 post on Instagram, pastor Landon Schott of Mercy Culture, a megachurch in Fort Worth, Texas, was ebullient.
'I just found out that @mercyculturepreparatory is the number one school in Texas for the LEAST amount of 'vaccinations!'' he said. 'We value our HEALTH & FREEDOM!'
Just 14.2% of Mercy Culture Prep's kindergarteners were vaccinated, according to Texas health department figures for 2023-24, the lowest rate by a solid margin among the state's 1,681 schools or districts submitting data. The second least vaccinated school was Dallas Christian Academy, with a 25% vaccination rate, followed by the Turkey-Quitaque Independent School District in the southeast Texas panhandle, with a 35.7% vaccination rate.
'I just want to congratulate all the family members of MC Prep that embrace freedom of health,' Schott said in a video accompanying the post, which had received nearly 1,800 'likes' as of Tuesday afternoon and comments consisting of clapping-hand emojis. 'They're not allowing government or science projects to affect how you live and lead your life.'
The next day, Texas State Rep. Nate Schatzline posted his own video, adding that his children attend Mercy Culture.
"I've gotten word that my children's school has been ranked the #1 most unvaccinated school in Texas & I'm upset…that we haven't celebrated sooner!" Schatzline wrote in the accompanying text.
The return of a once-eradicated disease
The U.S. is experiencing its largest measles outbreak in years. Two people – a school-age child in Texas and a man in New Mexico, both unvaccinated – have died. Texas state health department officials reported 223 cases statewide as of Tuesday, with 156 of those alone in Gaines County, southwest of Lubbock. Twenty-nine people have been hospitalized.
Health experts have stressed the importance of vaccines to stop the spread of measles, an extremely contagious viral infection that can lead to serious, life-threatening health complications like pneumonia or encephalitis – particularly among children younger than 5. It spreads through the air through coughs and sneezes and can linger for as long as two hours after an infected person has left the area.
'Measles is so contagious that 90 percent of unvaccinated people who are exposed to measles will get sick,' said Lara Anton, a state Department of State Health Services spokesperson. Nearly one in five people who contract the virus, she said, require hospitalization.
The Texas outbreak has spread in under-vaccinated communities where people have been fed misinformation that measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines are dangerous. The MMR vaccine, with two complete doses, provides 97% protection against measles and is even 93% effective with just one dose.
Before the introduction of measles vaccine in 1963 and widespread vaccination, major epidemics occurred worldwide approximately every two to three years and caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization.
Measles was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000 but has resurfaced as vaccination rates have fallen.
Given the seriousness of the outbreak, many responded to the posts with scorn.
'You are putting the safety of children at risk by advocating for this,' one commenter told Schott. 'Shame on you.'
'This is a horrible thing to be celebrating,' wrote another. 'This is a disgrace to the name of Christ. Jesus loves the children, and advocating for them to be exposed to preventable sickness and death defies every tenet of Jesus loving the little children. Please, please, reconsider this.'
'You are truly a nut job,' said another.
Meanwhile, in response to Schatzline, one woman wrote: "Celebrating turning your back on science while people die isn't the flex you think it is."
Reached last week, Schott told USA TODAY that Mercy Culture believes "in freedom of health, and that parents should have their rights."
"We believe in freedom of health and that parents should have their rights," Schott said.
He conspiratorially characterized the health officials' urgings of vaccines as part of 'this constant push and narrative to control people,' one he said similarly played out during COVID-19 when he said vaccines and masks "were shoved down our throats."
Schott said he doesn't tell his congregation what to do.
'I've never encouraged anyone to get or not get a vaccination," he said. "We have tons of people who have gotten the vaccine and there's no pressure, no hatred, no shade thrown on any of those people. We celebrate each parent stewarding their children and their family's freedom and health.'
Remaining firm despite backlash
As a sociologist, Reich finds the growing rejection of vaccines foreseeable given cultural shifts toward individualism and parental empowerment.
'Parents have embraced an ethos that says they are personally responsible for their children's health and therefore best able to decide what their children need,' she said. 'It's unsurprising that vaccines have become part of that.'
Reich said examples such as Mercy Culture Church show the spread of infectious disease doesn't necessarily lead people to question such assumptions. Instead, she said, many consider illness a moral judgment – a reflection of one's baseline health, personal behavior, decision making or nutrition and exercise regimen.
'With this situation, parents really imagine their children will not be susceptible to the worst outcomes of infectious disease,' she said. 'Vaccines aren't going to keep their children safe; they are.'
The COVID-19 pandemic, she said, not only accelerated the move away from vaccines but made it largely a partisan one, with growing conservative cynicism regarding scientific and pharmaceutical research.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration's health secretary and noted vaccine skeptic, has minimized the national outbreak, suggesting remedies such as Vitamin A despite experts' advice otherwise. In an editorial published March 2 on Fox News Digital, he asked parents to consider measles vaccinations for their children but added that "the decision to vaccinate is a personal one."
Despite the blowback to his social media posts, Schott remained steadfast in his position.
According to his Instagram video, Schott learned about Mercy Culture's vaccination ranking when he walked into the boardroom this week and was greeted by balloons and a surprise gift – a T-shirt reading 'MC Prep: #1 School in Texas (for least amount of vaccinations).'
'Freedom is something we take seriously – religious freedom, freedom of our health,' he said in his Instagram video. 'So, shout-out to MC Prep for being the least vaccinated school in Texas! We'll take it.'
Reich considers such thinking worrisome.
'If we continue to think about everything as a process of personal choice, some people are going to be really vulnerable,' Reich said. 'Rubella isn't a particularly serious disease for the person infected, but prior to vaccination it was the leading cause for birth defects. If we continue to think about our decisions as only affecting us personally, even as we live in communities, we're going to encounter a lot more challenges going forward.'
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