The anti-vaccine movement has led to an increase in preventable infectious diseases, such as measles. Now, an infected person at Disneyland apparently caused nine children to get sick–and eight had not been vaccinated. From the CBSLA story:
At least nine people have contracted measles after visiting Disneyland parks in Orange County over the holidays, the state Department of Public Health said Wednesday. The local infected patients, who were from Alameda, Orange, Pasadena, Riverside and San Diego, range in age from 8 months to 21 years old. Just one of the infected individuals had been fully vaccinated.
This is reckless and irresponsible. Fears of autism–which have kept some parents from getting protection for their children–were based primarily on a completely discredited study that was rescinded by the Lancet in 2010.
It’s not like news travels slowly these days. Some people would rather believe.
That works fine in some areas of human interaction, but not this one. People owe it to their children to protect them from serious disease–as well as to others’ children and adults who may not have been vaccinated. It really is wrong to put people unnecessarily at risk of disease because of baseless fears.