An Epidemic Of Irresponsibility

Somebody went to Disneyland in December with a case of the measles, and at least 87 people got sick – including eight confirmed cases in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Several cases have appeared in seven other states and Mexico, too. Hundreds more people have been quarantined.

And all of it could have been prevented, if not for the blinkered attitudes of a few.

The California Department of Health on Monday reported 73 cases of measles in the state, of which 50 have been linked directly to last month's outbreak at the Happiest Place on Earth. Health officials know for certain that at least 34 patients were unvaccinated, three were partly vaccinated, and five were fully vaccinated.

Now, six of those unvaccinated cases were infants, meaning they were too young to receive the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine that most American children get as a matter of course. Usually, kids receive the vaccine after their first birthday, and again between the ages of 4 and 6.

So those babies and their parents are blameless. Pray for them.

But the others are much less deserving of our sympathy. Two of the Riverside County cases are siblings – one an infant, the other “younger than 10,” according to county health officials. The older child hadn't been vaccinated. Why not?

Two of the San Bernardino County cases are described in news reports as “young adults.” County officials don't know if they were vaccinated or not. But they do know that after visiting Disneyland, at least one of them went to the Morongo Casino in Cabazon, a Magic Wok in Chino, Jimmy's Warehouse Sportscard in Whittier, and Pomona Valley Health Urgent Care in Chino. Who knows how many other people were exposed? We'll find out soon enough.

A lack of vaccination made this outbreak possible. We're facing an epidemic of measles because we have an epidemic of irresponsibility.

Measles is ridiculously contagious. Unlike the Ebola virus, which threw the nation into a tizzy this past autumn, measles is likely to sicken 90 percent of the people who come into close proximity with an infected patient.

To put the matter in proper perspective: the United States had 635 confirmed cases of measles last year, versus 10 cases of Ebola – only two of which were contracted inside the country, both by nurses who treated Ebola patients from West Africa.

Your odds of getting Ebola? Almost infinitesimal. Your odds of getting measles? High if you haven't been vaccinated, greatly diminished if you have.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says two doses of the MMR vaccine are 97 percent effective against measles infection. Obviously, 97 percent means there will be a few who get sick even though they've been vaccinated – as we've seen with this outbreak. So it goes.

And because nothing is 100 percent guaranteed effective, that also means some people will have adverse reactions to the vaccine itself. In a nation of 322 million, that would mean a few million people – mostly kids – will suffer.

It's a risk, but one that's worthwhile. On balance, it's better to be vaccinated than unvaccinated. The more people who are vaccinated, the less likely the disease will spread.

Yet millions of Americans believe that vaccinations are harmful. They believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that vaccines cause autism. They reject the possibility that autism has a genetic component, or that medical science has become more adept at identifying children on the spectrum.

Many parents are convinced that vaccinations are just a way for greedy pharmaceutical companies and complacent doctors to bolster their bottom lines – never mind that vaccines tend to lose money. They refuse to “sacrifice” their children to Big Pharma, even if that means their children contract a potentially fatal and wholly preventable disease.

Here's where personal belief collides with the public good. We are individuals with God-given rights. But we live among other people with rights as well. Your right to refuse to vaccinate your children ends where my children's right to avoid needless exposure to infection begins.

Even from a libertarian point of view, vaccination is a matter of rational self-interest. If living a healthy, autonomous life is one end of freedom, then vaccination is a means to that end.

But the anti-vaccination movement has taken an awful toll. How many more epidemics will it take before this wretched belief recedes to the fringes, where it belongs?

This piece originally appeared in Riverside Press Enterprise

This piece originally appeared in Riverside Press Enterprise