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Vaccinations for everyone

2 min read

Turn the clock back a couple hundred years, and two of the world’s most reliable killers were war and pestilence.

The former remains stubbornly persistent, while the latter has been increasingly tamed, thanks to the blessings that modern medicine bestowed upon us. By and large, parents in developed countries no longer have to worry about infectious diseases endangering the lives of their children thanks to vaccines that repel whooping cough, measles, smallpox and other forms of contagion.

In the last couple of years, as has been widely noted by this newspaper and many other media outlets, a subset of parents in the United States has gotten it into their heads that vaccines could be dangerous, or spark autism. This urban legend was fueled by a scientific paper from 1998 that was completely discredited, and by some misinformed celebrities, like television personality Jenny McCarthy, who put themselves on the front lines of the “anti-vaxxers.”

We’re now witnessing the result of too many parents opting against getting their children vaccinated. A measles outbreak that is believed to have started at Disneyland in California has now spread to at least 11 states and, as of this past weekend, has infected 67 people. This might sound like a fairly small number, but keep in mind measles was declared eradicated in the United States in 2000.

There is absolutely no need for this. It can’t be said enough, or stated more emphatically: Vaccines are safe. Families should avail themselves of them. If not, they could be putting their children – or someone else’s children – at risk.

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