Refusal Archive

What slips
is not the needle
but the gap left
when it does not arrive –
a hollowing
measured in
missing.
Years spool
through skin-maps
never marked,
and still
the body waits
to meet
what it was never taught
to remember.
Old names
begin again
in the fever-rooms –
measles,
rubella,
mumps –
they do not knock,
only follow
the curve of forgetting.
And in the doorways,
a tally grows
of who could
have been.

This poem is inspired by recent research, which has found that a 50% drop in US childhood vaccination could cause 51 million measles cases in 5 years.

For decades, routine childhood vaccinations have helped protect populations in the United States from infectious diseases such as measles, rubella, and polio – diseases that once caused widespread illness, disability, and death. However, vaccination rates are starting to fall, fuelled by misinformation, vaccine hesitancy, and proposed policy changes. This decline puts hard-won public health gains at risk. If fewer children are vaccinated, outbreaks of previously eliminated diseases could return, with serious consequences for individual health and health systems.

This research used computer simulations to explore what could happen in the US if childhood vaccination rates continue to fall. The results were stark. Even at current levels, measles may become common again. If vaccination rates drop by half, the model predicts over 50 million measles cases in 25 years, alongside millions of rubella and polio cases, over 10 million hospitalisations, and more than 150,000 deaths. These findings underline the urgent need to maintain – and where possible, improve – vaccine coverage. Without it, preventable diseases could return and cause suffering on a scale not seen for generations.