Dr. Justin Moll, pediatrician at Parkside Pediatrics clinic. Spartanburg, South Carolina. February 4, 2026. REUTERS/Chad Terhune
About a dozen times each day, medical staff at Parkside Pediatrics in Spartanburg, South Carolina, head to the clinic’s parking lot, reaching inside cars and minivans to check children and their parents for fever, rash and other signs of measles.
Dr. Justin Moll started this outdoor triage in December to cope with what has quickly become the largest US measles outbreak in more than three decades, federal health data show.
Moll and his colleagues fear that outbreaks like these are becoming the new normal as Americans’ opposition to vaccines deepens, fueled by backlash to the COVID-19 response and misinformation on social media. Medical experts say US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine policies have further undermined public trust in life-saving immunizations.
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