HILDALE, Utah. Few people talk about vaccinations here. At least not for outsiders.
By and large, people living in Hildale, as well as neighboring Colorado City, just over the state line in Arizona, are very introverted. Many houses are surrounded by high walls to avoid the prying eyes of strangers.
Measles has entered Anyway.
As of Friday, 161 cases had been confirmed in Utah and Arizona, with most concentrated just along the border in the Twin Cities known collectively as Short Creek. Eleven people – eight in Utah and three in Arizona – were hospitalized.
It is now the site of the second-largest measles outbreak in the U.S. this year, following an outbreak that spread from West Texas to New Mexico, sickening at least 862 people and killing three. Two were young girls.
Vaccination rates have dropped sharply There have been outbreaks in both zones in recent years, and they have similarities in appearance. Both outbreaks have engulfed communities that are deeply skeptical of government intervention and traditional medicine. Both outbreaks largely affected people closely associated with religious sects: Mennonites in West Texas and (mostly former) members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) in Short Creek.
But the Short Creek community is also grappling with its recent past – polygamy, child removal and a cult leader now in prison for sexually abusing minors.
“We had so much trauma,” said Donia Jessop, mayor of Hildale and former FLDS member. “Vaccinating children or boosting vaccinations was not our first thought.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outlawed polygamy more than 100 years ago. Some members, however, continued to believe that having multiple wives benefited men in the afterlife and separated, becoming FLDS. One of the places where members settled was Short Creek.
Jessop fondly remembers growing up in the 1970s and '80s in a tight-knit community with two moms and many siblings and cousins who were her best friends.
“I had a perfect childhood,” she said. “Any mother in the city guaranteed me a spanking or food, because we were raised like in the village.”
But polygamy was and remains illegal. This practice was the reason for two federal raids on Short Creek—one in 1953 and another in 2008. Both times, government officials temporarily forcibly removed children from their families while trying to determine whether the children were being abused or neglected.
The children were returned, but the trauma remained. “It made a lot of us FLDS kids very afraid of the cops,” said Gloria Steed, who was 14 years old at the time of the 2008 raid. “After that we were very reluctant to be told what to do.”
Steed said her mother was born around the time of the 1953 raid and grew up with anti-government and, in turn, anti-vaccine tendencies. “It really affected her faith and trust in systems,” said Steed, who was not vaccinated as a child.
However, according to Jessop, there was never a specific religious prohibition against such shots. She was vaccinated as a child. (No major religion outright opposes vaccinations..)
That changed in 2002, according to Jessop and other former FLDS members. This year, Warren Jeffs, the now imprisoned cult leader, became their prophet. The FLDS prophet is considered the direct voice of God. He often has dozens of wives.
Brielle Decker, Jeffs' 65th wife, said he was spreading lies. about immunization.
He “said vaccines are bad and there are substances in them that make you unable to have children,” said Decker, who has since left the FLDS lifestyle. The ability to procreate and have many, many children is critical to maintaining a community, according to Decker and other former members.
According to former FLDS members, Jeffs exerted more control over the Short Creek community than previous prophets. They say he took over their land and homes, even reassigning their wives and children to different husbands and fathers, breaking up families and preventing them from contacting each other.
Jessop, who was not mayor when Jeffs was a prophet, also said that Jeffs limited access to city health clinics for people he deemed unworthy, before shutting down the health care system entirely.
Jeffs was on the FBI's Most Wanted list before his arrest in 2006. He is serving a life sentence for sexually abusing minor members of the FLDS community.
The wounds of the Jeff era in Short Creek run deep. The district has had to work to restore the basics: running water, schools and a health care system, including regular health screenings.
With so much to pull together, making sure children are included in vaccinations has risen to the top of the priority list, Jessop said.
Although Short Creek has two medical clinics, companies promoting natural and herbal remedies have become popular substitutes for medical care.
At Paty's Place, a popular health food store in the area, a store employee said several people came in for advice on treating measles. Store owner Paty LeBaron did not respond to NBC News' request for comment. wrote on Facebook that she never “claimed to know how to cure measles” and encouraged people to “seek reliable, evidence-based medical advice from qualified health care professionals about measles or any other serious illness.”
A similar phenomenon was observed in West Texas: in the city of Seminole. Parents of children with measles flocked to Sanatorium 2 ED for fish oilan unproven remedy promoted by Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Covid pandemic has further complicated efforts to restore routine health care, said Aaron Hunt, a public health expert with the University of Utah Extension Program.
“Parents are trying to do what they think is best for their child,” Hunt said, “but since Covid they've been faced with a lot of misinformation.”
That leaves moms and dads fearful of even rare vaccine side effects, said Hunt, who works with health care providers across Utah to help them combat vaccine misinformation. (Vaccination refusal not only opened the door to measles; whooping cough also distributed throughout the state.)
“You want to have honest conversations with people and empower them to make their own decisions for themselves and their families,” Hunt said.
But now that measles is spreading in the Short Creek community, people appear to be taking the vaccines. Jessop, the mayor of Hildale, said there has been a “dramatic increase” in vaccinations since the outbreak began.
David Heaton, a spokesman for the Southwestern Utah Department of Public Health, said the area saw a 14% increase in vaccinations from July to September of this year compared with the same period in 2024.
However, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Health Services said current MMR vaccination rates are at 2024 levels.
The spread of the virus is not contained in the Short Creek area. Over the past few weeks, measles cases have also been reported in the cities of St. George and Hurricane in Utah. On Wednesday, Salt Lake County Public Health officials said it was a probable case but could not confirm it because the person in question refused to be tested.
Becky Goymarak lives in St. George, about 45 miles from Hildale. Her teenage son contracted the virus at a high school cycling event in Park City, Utah, in August. This was the first sign of a measles outbreak in the state.
“Personally, it didn’t bother me because my children are vaccinated,” Goymarak said. “It made me even sadder that we even have to worry about such things.”
Steed, a former FLDS member now 31, remembers having whooping cough and chickenpox as a child. But she still has doubts about the vaccines designed to prevent these diseases.
“I don’t trust the system,” Steed said. “I think doctors are offering too many vaccines too early.” Centers for Disease Control and Preventionalong with American Academy of Pediatricsstates that childhood vaccination schedules are carefully scrutinized to provide the most protection with the fewest number of shots.
However, Steed allowed her 9-year-old son, Jonda, to get some of the vaccinations she felt were most important so he wouldn't have to suffer like she did. “I thought that whatever I got as a child, I would be doing my son a favor if I got it,” she said. In addition to the chickenpox and whooping cough vaccines, Yonde received one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine as a child. Two doses are recommended for 97% protection.
When the measles outbreak began in Short Creek in late summer, Steed got the MMR vaccine because she was planning to become a surrogate mother. Measles during pregnancy is a strong risk factor for miscarriage or premature birth. Jonde received her second dose of MMR that same day based on her trust in local doctors and nurses, who also grew up in Short Creek, Steed said.
Steed is seeing the benefits of the MMR vaccine firsthand as the outbreak grows in her community.
“The vaccines are working. It's been a blessing to see that,” she said.
“It really comes down to doctors and nurses being willing to listen to patients' individual experiences, rather than constantly trying to force them into something because they think they're better or smarter,” Steed said. “You know, the medical field can be a bit like a cult.”
