The anti-vaxx movement is now a pandemic

It’s looking like this will be another banner year for measles in the U.S. An outbreak in the Pacific Northwest that began in late January continues to spread, with more than 50 cases now reported. Texas health officials last week reported five cases in the Houston area — four of them in children under 2. New York is still dealing with an outbreak among orthodox Jews who apparently brought the virus back from Israel.

The global measles picture is even gloomier. A large and ongoing outbreak in the Philippines has killed at least 50 people and may have spread to Australia. Nearly 12,000 cases were reported in Ukraine in January. Across the world, new cases are popping up all the time. All in all, there has been a 30 percent increase in measles worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

How has this disease that once was considered all but eliminated in developed nations surged back to life? The same anti-vaccination fear-mongering at work in the U.S. is spreading and contributing to a decline in vaccination rates.

Economic hardship and political unrest have contributed. But developed countries with strong health care systems have become hot spots as well. What’s now called “vaccine hesitancy” is on the WHO’s list of top 10 global health concerns for 2019.

One persistent but groundless fear is that vaccines cause autism. Domestically, measles is breaking out in states that allow parents to opt out of vaccinations for their kids on the basis of their “personal beliefs.” California stopped being one of those states after a serious outbreak at Disneyland in 2014. With measles so easily transmittable, populations with low vaccinations rates can be at risk from an outbreak half a world away.

Vaccinations still matter, and anti-vaxx attitudes must change. Parents need to understand that vaccines have saved millions of lives — and still do.