内容摘要：Edwards is asked whether he had measles, and he responded, “Yes,” then

Edwards is asked whether he had measles, and he responded, “Yes,” then

vaccination a personal choice, is a hero.“I don’t accept vaccines; it’s that easy. Because that’s where freedom of expression comes in,” said the man, Jacob Goertzen. “If we can’t make out own decisions, we don’t live in a democracy.”

Hernández, Cuauhtemoc’s health director, said outside influences affect community vaccine views.“The Mennonite population has a lot of access to social media and family members in the U.S. and Canada, where there are a lot of myths that have taken hold and many more ‘anti-vaccine’ groups than we have in Mexico,” he said.A tractor works a field belonging to members of the Mennonite community in Cuauhtemoc, Mexico, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Silva Rey)

A tractor works a field belonging to members of the Mennonite community in Cuauhtemoc, Mexico, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Silva Rey)During nurse Aguirre’s vaccination drive, one man simply said people here “prefer to cure themselves in their own way.” A mother described getting sick with measles as a “privilege” and spoke of putting her unvaccinated 5- and 7-year-olds in a party so everyone could get sick and recover — a risky tactic doctors have long denounced.

Mexico’s lone death from measles was a 31-year-old Mennonite man in the settlement who had diabetes and high blood pressure, underlying conditions that often complicate sicknesses.

People wait to get vaccinated for measles at a health center in Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua state, Mexico, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Megan Janetsky)Lachandretta “LaLa” Williams reaches for a pill bottle at MAC Pharmacy in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

The big drugstore chains still have thousands of locations, and the AP’s analysis counted more than 24,000 independent pharmacies. But drugstores routinely close because they aren’t doing well or the population has dropped — and the pace of closures is picking up.CVS said in 2021 that it planned to close 900 stores over three years; more than 600 already have shuttered. Rite Aid is expected to close hundreds as it works through

Across the U.S., more than 7,000 pharmacies have closed since 2019, according to data from University of Pittsburgh researcher Lucas Berenbrok, who considers that estimate conservative. Of those pharmacies, 54% were independent drugstores, an AP analysis of Berenbrok’s data found.“I think what (drugstores) have realized in the past couple years is that they are a little thinly spread out,” said Keonhee Kim, an analyst at the research firm Morningstar.