It takes a lot to knock football out of the headlines in Pittsburgh. But reports of measles cases, exposure alerts and calls for residents to double-check their vaccination status have dominated local news since August 2026.
My office at Allegheny College, where I am an epidemiologist, is within a few steps of a classroom dedicated to Dr. Thomas Francis. Francis coordinated the entire polio vaccine field trial, which included 1.8 million children, and deemed the polio vaccine “safe, effective, potent.”
