Will "Measles Parties" Return?

The co-author of this post is Will Schupmann President Trump's possible appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead a commission on vaccine safety should frighten all American parents. Kennedy, a vocal believer in the thoroughly discredited notion that childhood vaccines lead to autism, could strengthen the anti-vaccination movement, which would undoubtedly result in the deaths of unvaccinated children. Today's anti-vaccination movement has already proved to be dangerous. The Disneyland-linked outbreak of measles in California two years ago brought attention to a significant decline in vaccination rates, which vaccine opponents have had a hand in causing. Indeed, after having been declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, measles made a comeback, infecting over 100 children in that outbreak alone. Even more astounding and dangerous are reports of parents in California holding "measles parties," aiming to intentionally expose their unvaccinated children with an infected child. We don't have to wait to see what will happen if the anti-vaccination movement gains strength--we need only to look to America 60 years ago. During the 1950s and early 1960s, measles was a common childhood illness. But when vaccine researchers developed the first measles vaccine in 1963, parents were by no means rushing into their doctor's office to get their child vaccinated. Many, like some parents today, were under the impression that the vaccine was unnecessary; they saw measles as so prevalent th...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news