The U.S. recently reached a grim milestone: As of July 23, more measles cases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention than in any year since 1991. It took less than seven months to blow past the three-decade high recorded last year.

This potentially deadly disease is easily prevented. Shots are widely available and, in many cases, free. Still, since the beginning of last year, more than 4,850 people here have been infected, and three have died. Among them were two unvaccinated girls in West Texas whose deaths made national headlines.

It may feel like the continuous stream of cases is just the way things are now. But it is dangerous to shrug off the resurgence of measles. In a story I reported earlier this year, I showed what’s happened in parts of the world that have let their guard down to vaccine-preventable diseases. My reporting found that long-forgotten scourges roared back, killing and disabling children. Even countries that made what seemed like subtle changes to immunization policies suffered disastrous consequences years later.

Babies were born blind, deaf and with intellectual disabilities because their mothers caught rubella in the early weeks of pregnancy. Parents saw why diphtheria used to be known as “the strangling angel of children.” Doctors told me they couldn’t undo the damage when these horrors returned. Modern medicine can do a lot of things, but it can’t reverse paralysis from polio.

The story also showed how Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, and President Donald Trump have been transforming a government that for decades promoted the lifesaving benefits of shots into one that sows doubts about their safety. Last week, the president issued another executive order that’s sure to fuel further hesitancy about the shot that has protected children from measles, mumps and rubella for decades.

It’s a sharp departure for a........

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