Leadership needed to stop measles

Measles is one of the most contagious pathogens on the planet. Before a vaccine was introduced in 1963, it infected four million people every year in the United States. Of the 500 or so people who died each year, most were children younger than five.

Until recently, those numbers were a matter of history. The vaccine drove the annual case count to zero inside of four decades. Measles was officially eradicated in America in 2000 and was largely wiped from our collective memory soon after. But in the shadow of that memory lapse, a different virus has spread: anti-vaccine propaganda and vaccine misinformation. Both have persuaded a small but growing number of parents that vaccines designed to inoculate against infectious diseases pose a greater risk than the diseases themselves. For a while, it was easy to dismiss the nation’s anti-vaccine contingent. But a new rash of outbreaks – six so far this year, across five states – has made clear that even small pockets of vaccine hesitancy and refusal can have grave consequences.

As healthcare workers struggle to persuade wary parents that vaccines are safe, elected officials ought to stop undermining it. Senator Rand Paul, a medical doctor, warned of sacrificing ‘‘liberty for a false sense of security’’. Such statements might please some voters, but they will not nudge diseases like measles back into history.