President Barack Obama said Sunday that the science on vaccinations is “indisputable” and urged parents to vaccinate their children, as officials tried to contain one of the worst measles outbreaks in years.
In an interview set to air Monday morning on NBC’s “Today,” Obama told Savannah Guthrie that he wants families to consider the science backing immunizations.
“I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations,” he said, according to excerpts of the interview released Sunday. “The science is, you know, pretty indisputable. We’ve looked at this again and again. There is every reason to get vaccinated, but there aren’t reasons to not.”
At least 100 people have come down with measles since an outbreak started in December at California’s Disneyland park, public health officials said Friday.
Measles were virtually eradicated in the U.S. by 2000 but have reappeared in recent years. The virus’ re-emergence coincided with a rise in parents seeking personal belief exemptions from vaccinating their children, or delaying their children’s vaccinations because of a debunked study linking vaccines to autism.
“You should get your kids vaccinated,” Obama told Guthrie. “It’s good for them and the challenge you have is if you have a certain group of kids who don’t get vaccinated, and if it grows large enough that a percentage of the population doesn’t get vaccinated and they’re the folks who can’t get vaccinated, small infants, for example, or people with certain vulnerabilities that can’t vaccinated, they suddenly become much more vulnerable.”
This post has been updated.
Oh Oh!! We’re headed for a major measles epidemic. Now that Obama is for vaccinations, all the right wingers are going to stop vaccinating their kids.
Beat me to it.
Now watch! Every Republican will come out against vaccinations in 5…4…3…2…1…
There isn’t enough attention paid to the fact that parents are endangering other people by deliberately refusing to vaccinate their kids. I have professionally witnessed the ripple effect of a documented pertussis infection: between siblings, cousins, classmates, and elders, it’s about 25 people who get postexposure antimicrobial prophylaxis.
The fact that the President of the United States has to make a statement like this, in the year 2015, about something that should be blindingly obvious, speaks volumes about the flat-out stupidity of the Republican voter. It just furthers my belief that we really are too stupid to live as a species.