Thanks for nothing, Jenny McCarthy:
Recent measles outbreaks in New York, California and Texas are examples of what could happen on a larger scale if vaccination rates dropped, says Anne Schuchat, the CDC's director of immunizations and respiratory diseases. Officials declared measles, which causes itchy rashes and fevers, eradicated in the United States in 2000. Yet this year, the disease is on track to infect three times as many people as in 2009. That's because in most cases people who have not been vaccinated are getting infected by others traveling into the United States. Then, Schuchat says, the infected spread it in their communities.
Vaccination rates against most diseases are about 90%. Fewer than 1% of Americans forgo all vaccinations, Schuchat says. Even so, in some states the anti-vaccine movement, aided by religious and philosophical state exemptions, is growing, says Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
[. . .]
In communities across the nation, Americans of all stripes are making dangerous decisions to reschedule or forgo immunization, says Alan Hinman, a scientist who sits on the scientific advisory board of Voices for Vaccines, which supports and advocates for on-time vaccinations.
She is, of course, the celbrity mom who has done more than any other one person to make the anti-vaccine position respectable. Wonder how many children will die because of her? Why don't the anti-gun zealots spend a little effort of getting her to stop? Ignorance and fear are like bullets, which makes her a terrorist.
