The United States is experiencing the biggest measles outbreak in over three decades. Ninety-two percent of the cases are from unvaccinated people. "Measles are the canary in the coal mine," said Dr. William John Moss of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health to a Council on Foreign Relations audience on Thursday. That's because measles, virtually eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, spreads easily and is very effective at finding unvaccinated people. The risks of exponential measles growth are very high, given deeply worrisome anti-vaccination behaviors, misinformation and disinformation sewing seeds of mistrust in science generally and vaccines specifically, and continued cuts in vaccine research budgets. There is a noteworthy resurgence of whooping cough in the U.S. and other highly contagious diseases, as well, especially in states with relatively high proportions of unvaccinated people. Self-inflicted wounds all around, it seems, and children are often the greatest v...
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