Russell Saunders, writing for the Daily Beast:
But now, shoppers in Boston-area supermarkets get to worry that they may have been exposed when they stopped by for groceries. Commuters in the Bay Area now have to contend with the possibility that they or their children may contract the illness because they happened to get on the wrong train. Over a dozen people around Los Angeles have been diagnosed with measles already this year, nearly half of them intentionally unvaccinated.
This is sheer lunacy. Just over a dozen years ago this illness was considered eliminated in our country, and this year people are being hospitalized for it. All due to the hysteria about a safe, effective vaccine. All based on nothing.
Absurd, and sad.
I definitely understand the mindset that leads to the anti-vaccination stance. I get it: the institution of medicine doesn’t have a perfect track record. There are definitely drugs and “chemicals” and additives out there that aren’t tested enough. And it’s easy to get pulled into conspiracy theories and think that maybe, just maybe, there is a link between vaccines and autism.
But vaccination against debilitating, highly infectious diseases is too important to public health, and now people are starting to die. In the case of measles, the vaccine is worth the hypothetical consequences.