Everyone should get vaccinated, and, in recent weeks, measles has given us nasty reminder of why: as of last Friday, 16 cases of the highly-contagious respiratory virus had been reported in New York City.
Despite having been officially “eliminated” in the United States since 2000, measles can still make its way back into communities when people bring it from overseas. From there, the disease still wouldn’t get very far in a community where people are immunized. Yet it seems people are refusing to get the message. Beyond the cases reported in New York, measles has now cropped up everywhere from San Diego to Boston to a suburb of Vancouver. The former is a particularly scary case; 100 cases have shown up recently.
According to the CDC, following the proper vaccination schedule of two doses of MMR is nearly 100 percent effective at preventing measles. Please do not excuse yourself from vaccination based on phony science. We all need to do it. [NYC Health via The Daily Beast]
Image: Shutterstock/yang na
