Measles were once nonexistent in the United States, until a few weeks ago that is. If you’ve been following the news then you’ve probably heard about the measles outbreak that stems from Disneyland in California. So far 100 cases have been reported to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). When I first heard about this story I thought, “How could this happen? Why aren’t parents vaccinating their children?” The vaccine debate is nothing new, it started in the late 1990s when a paper was published linking the MMR Vaccine to Autism. That link has been debunked thousands of times and the doctor who published that paper lost his medical license as a result. For every article that says that there is a link between the MMR vaccine and Autism I could show you a hundred that says there isn’t. When parents don’t vaccinate their kids against highly contagious diseases such as measles, they’re impacting their childrens lives and people around them. Your unvaccinated children could seriously harm people with cancer or other severe immune problems. Unless your child physically cannot be vaccinated, then there are no excuses for why they shouldn’t be. There is no reason why a disease once eliminated from the U.S. should be making a comeback. Bands and singers should make comebacks, not diseases.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Towson chapter.