Study after study show conclusively that vaccinating children against measles, mumps and rubella do not, repeat not, cause an increase in autism. But getting some people– including certain corporate CEOS, politicians and broadcasters – to understand this is harder than getting a Kansas school board to accept evolution.
Except that Kansas conservatives the other day did throw out two incumbent swing voters, guaranteeing the state will return to at least the 19th century science teaching.
The New England Journal of Medicine this week reports that measles has been nearly eliminated in the United States, though it kills 450,000 a year worldwide. Nearly eliminated, that is, except for the university town of West Lafayette, Ind., and environs, where 34 people broke out with the potentially fatal disease last year, more than the number who contracted measles in the entire country the year before.
Why? An unvaccinated Indiana teen traveled to Romania and picked up measles there, spreading it back through her church to other youngsters, who also were never vaccinated and a majority of whom were home schooled.
Kansans have evolved. When will Hoosiers?