http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-measlesvaccine-jenny-mccarthy-autism-ebola-perspec-0213-jm-20150212-story.

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Are you at risk to get the measles? Are your kids?
Duh, yes if you are not vaccinated!
Commuters on San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit system were exposed
to measles last week when an East Bay resident with the disease rode a BART
train to and from work in the city for three days. The measles is way more easy
to catch then Ebola. If someone has it and brings it on a subway, to a day care
center or to a train station, you could, if you are not vaccinated, get it.
Given these facts, why is it that so many parents all over the United States
have chosen not to vaccinate their children against the measles and other
infectious diseases? Measles was virtually wiped out in the United States years
ago thanks to vaccination. Now it is back. Why the growing rate of
nonvaccination?
The most popular explanation is that false claims linking the measles-mumpsrubella shot to autism are what have led many parents to stop getting their
children vaccinated. This explanation appears everywhere in the media and
even in the public health literature. This leads to the belief that if the phony
link between vaccination and autism could be broken, if we could just clear the
Internet of misinformation and slap a muzzle on celebrity proponents of antivaccine fear-mongering, such as Jenny McCarthy, Rob Schneider, Bill Maher
and Donald Trump, then the truth would get vaccination rates back up to
where they were in the good old days.
Maybe not.
The false claim that the vaccine for measles caused an increase in autism was
made in 1998 by a doctor writing in a distinguished British medical journal. So

it is understandable that many parents took it seriously, not wanting to run

the risk of having their children become autistic. But the doctor, Andrew
Wakefield, has long since been exposed as a fraud, with his medical license
yanked; the journal apologized many years ago for publishing such dreck; and
no medical organization lends any support to the claim. Still, despite the
autism claim being debunked over and over again, vaccination rates fell so low
that we now have an epidemic.
What gives? It can't just be the autism zombie living on and on in the cloud.
I think other factors are to blame for undermining support for vaccination
against the measles: the media, fear of pharma and the lack of support from
religious leaders and organizations.
There are a handful of irresponsible medical doctors who peddle vaccine
misinformation and whom the media keep throwing on the air or into print to
give the "other side" of the vaccine issue. For example, there is the lunatic
osteopath Jack Wolfson, who told The Arizona Republic that diseases like
measles are nature's way of building up the immune system: "We should be
getting measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox; these are the rights of our
children to get it."
OK, Jack, interesting point of view ya got there.
Normally we would quietly leave Jack in a corner to rant to himself, but he
and an exceedingly tiny handful of his nutball doctor friends have been
showing up in the media spewing nonsense at parents for many years. This
knucklehead and a few other anti-vaccine windbags have been all over the
media thousands of times, including on network and cable news, on local
news, in print and on social media outlets. They are presented as "experts" as
they spew drivel about the dangers of vaccines and the glories of the measles.
They have gotten a billion times more exposure than they should have in the
media's bizarre effort to provide balance on the vaccination issue.

Balance? There is no balance. There is mainstream, superstrong consensus

about the value of vaccination, and on the other side ... nothing else, since
there is no other side. The media have made parents worry about vaccines in a
lame effort to provide balance and all points of view.
Then there is fear of Big Pharma. People think vaccines are some sort of
conspiracy on the part of the pharmaceutical industry to make money by
injecting us all. As a proponent of vaccines and a fierce critic of anti-vaccine
claptrap, I constantly get told that I must be in the pocket of pharma (I am
not), on the payroll of pharma (nope) or support organizations that take
pharma money to promote vaccination (guilty).

Big Pharma is easy to hate. So if its members make vaccines, they must be bad.
Of course pharma also makes insulin and aspirin and cancer drugs and drugs
for many other awful diseases but forget that. I wish pharma and its
brethren in biotech would make more money from vaccines. That would mean
shifting its profit schemes to prevention from treatment. Right now it makes
about 3 percent of its money from vaccines. If it would push vaccines harder,
we would be healthier and it would be only a tiny bit poorer. Making money
from affordably priced vaccines is one of the most ethical things the industry
could do. If critics try to sell that as a plot, the correct answer is, sadly, it is still
only a dream.
Religious leaders and their organizations have been far too quiet about their
support for and endorsement of vaccination. All the public sees and hears is
that many people refuse vaccines on religious grounds. Really? Who? What
religion opposes vaccinations?
Hindu? No. Jehovah's Witness and Christian Scientist? Nope. Eastern
Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Amish, Anglican, Baptist, Mormon,
Congregational, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian

and Seventh-Day Adventist? Nope. A few Roman Catholics have expressed

concerns about aborted fetal tissues once used in manufacturing some
vaccines, although the Vatican has again and again urged that this be ignored
in order to protect the community. Jewish? Nope; that religion was among the
earliest supporters of smallpox inoculation. Buddhist? No. Muslim? No.
I could go on, but I would rather religious leaders did so vociferously and
knocked the canard that religion opposes vaccination out of the public's mind.
Yes, the old lie that vaccines cause autism has caused a lot of vaccine
resistance. But there are other causes too. Time to fix them unless you are a
fan of the measles, mumps, whooping cough, flu, pneumonia, polio, tetanus
and meningitis, to name but a few preventable diseases.