Commentators Take Parents, Politicians To Task For Lack Of Commitment To Vaccines

The Wall Street Journal: The Weird Vaccine Panic
On Tuesday we rapped Chris Christie for his odd doubts about public vaccines amid a dangerous outbreak of measles in California. But it seems this is something of an epidemic among potential GOP presidential candidates, so perhaps it’s time for some facts about science, liberty and public health. (2/3)

Los Angeles Times: GOP 2016 Primary Field Gets Case Of Indigestion Over Measles Vaccine
Thanks to a thoughtless equivocation by an American governor visiting Britain, the measles vaccine has become the first important controversy of the 2016 Republican presidential primary. As with other long-settled issues that unexpectedly pop up to bite national political candidates in their behinds (birth control, anyone?), so it is with mandatory immunizations, which protect the public against pestilence, and whose efficacy rests on “herd immunity,” the idea that we all stick together so no one gets picked off by microbial predators. (Robin Abcarian, 2/3)

USA Today: Politicians Peddle Vaccine Nonsense: Our View
Chris Christie and Rand Paul must not have gotten the memo: The middle of a measles outbreak is no time for loose talk about making vaccines optional. On Monday, the New Jersey governor and the Kentucky senator, both likely contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, dived face-first into the emotional debate over childhood vaccines by suggesting that some shots shouldn't be mandatory. (2/3)

The Washington Post: Mr. Paul’s And Mr. Christie’s Irresponsible Comments About Measles Vaccinations
Two potential Republican presidential candidates, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have made irresponsible comments about vaccines at a time when measles has reappeared in the United States. Their remarks call into question their judgment and their fitness for higher office. (2/3)

The Washington Post: A GOP Outbreak Of Scientific Illiteracy
Move over Michele Bachmann. Here comes the 2016 Republican presidential field on the scientifically indisputable but ideologically fraught issue of vaccination. You may recall Bachmann’s campaign implosion in 2011, when the then-Minnesota congresswoman warned of “very dangerous consequences” of the HPV vaccine, citing a woman whose daughter “suffered mental retardation as a result.” (Ruth Marcus, 2/3)

Reuters: Vaccine Politics: Blame Science And Win In Iowa
[C]onservatism is witnessing a renewed flowering of its distrust of science. Republicans have traditionally been strong supporters of medical and other scientific research. Yet since the mid-20th century, a healthy number of grass-roots Republicans have come to consider doctors and scientists as enforcers of a mechanistic and anti-religious worldview that violates both common sense and American freedom. The roots of such sentiments, which in some ways stretch back to the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial,” flourished particularly among the hard-line anti-communist right of the 1950s and 1960s. (Robert D. Johnston, 3/3)

Reuters: Vaccines: The Best Way To Persuade Parents Is The Worst For Kids
How can we persuade these frightened parents of what we all knew a generation ago — that community health is essential for personal health. ... Experience — the one kind of education that we know works — might be having an effect. The rising number of cases of measles, from 100 cases a year in 2000 when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared victory, to the 644 cases reported last year and the 100 plus reported last month, may have revealed some of the health benefits of vaccination. Many of those who have opted out of vaccines for their children grew up when measles was at its historic low. Experience is an excellent teacher. (Lisa Sanders, 2/4)

The Washington Post: Seeking A Vaccine For Ignorance
After decades free of many crippling and deadly diseases thanks to the miracle of vaccines, some people are skeptical. Parents fearful of side effects, often on account of anecdotal evidence or discredited studies, are reluctant to vaccinate their children. (Kathleen Parker, 2/3)

Bloomberg: Vaccine Refusal Is Like Drunken Driving
Should you get your kids vaccinated against measles? Of course you should. You shouldn't do this, however, because it is risk-free. Drugs can have side effects, and although those documented for the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine are either minor or extremely rare, the risk of something bad happening isn't zero. ... The medical consensus is always shifting; risk can't be completely eliminated. It’s just that, when you weigh the real and hypothetical risks of the MMR vaccine against the known risks posed by actual measles -- ear infections, pneumonia, convulsions, brain inflammation, brain damage, death -- they don’t amount to much. (Justin Fox, 2/3)

Bloomberg: How To Eradicate Anti-Vaccine Fever
The anti-vaccination movement has hit a wall. After years of flourishing on the margins of the political spectrum, activists and their political enablers are on the defensive, as long-dormant diseases come back with a vengeance. This description fits the intensifying uproar over the re-emergence of measles and whooping cough in 2015. It applies just as well to an outbreak of smallpox in 1894. (Stephen Mihm, 2/3)

Bloomberg: Measles And Millennials
The U.S. declared measles eliminated from the nation (though it still arrives from abroad) in 2000, thanks in part to a very effective vaccine. The recent outbreak seems due in part to the resistance of some Americans to using that very effective vaccine. Perhaps even more troubling, young Americans seem especially likely to believe discredited assertions connecting vaccination to autism. (Zara Kessler, 2/2)

Reuters: Numbers Show Just How Deadly Measles Can Be
An outbreak at Disneyland in December of last year caused at least 59 people to contract measles, and as cases of the viral disease continue to grow, so, too, does an epidemic of outrage over what is considered by many to be a preventable danger. (Mike Corones, 3/3)