The U.S. will likely lose its measles elimination status Public health experts say losing elimination status is more than just symbolic. "I think it's really a comment on the state of the public health system," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "We maintained elimination for 25 years. And so now, to be facing its loss, it really points to the cycle of panic and neglect, where I think that we have forgotten what it's like to face widespread measles." MAGA