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Texas
Prominent US anti-vaxxer says he caught measles and traveled back home
Brian Hooker seems to not have alerted authorities of his illness after leaving west Texas
Melody Schreiber
Mon 21 Jul 2025 11.09 EDT
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One of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the US says he caught measles in west Texas and traveled back home – but he seems not to have alerted local authorities of his illness, which means the highly transmissible virus may have spread onward.
Measles is a threat to people who are unvaccinated or immune-compromised. In anti-vaccine communities, it may quickly find a foothold and spread largely under the radar before ballooning into an outbreak.
Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense, filmed an interview in west Texas in March with the parents of the six-year-old child who died from measles – the first measles death in the US in a decade.
The video promoted several dangerous myths about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Two doses of the vaccine are 97% effective at preventing measles, a virus that can be deadly and can cause lifelong harm.
Hooker and Polly Tommey, an anti-vaccine film-maker with Children’s Health Defense, also interviewed other Mennonite families in west Texas. And they visited the medical office of Ben Edwards while patients and Edwards himself had symptomatic measles, they said.
Hooker then traveled home to Redding, California, and developed measles symptoms, he said.
“Full disclosure, 18 days after visiting Seminole, Texas, sitting in a measles clinic and being exposed to Doctor Ben with the measles, I got the measles. So cool,” Hooker said.
Hooker, Tommey, and Edwards spoke on a podcast hosted by anti-vaccine activist Steve Kirsch on May 22. This news has not been previously reported by other outlets. Children’s Health Defense did not respond to the Guardian’s inquiry for this story.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/21/anti-vaxxer-measles-texas
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Prominent US anti-vaxxer says he caught measles and traveled back home Brian Hooker seems to not have alerted authorities of his illness after leaving west Texas
