Thanks again to Jenny McCarthy and her merry band of irresponsible quacks, California’s children are at great risk:
The rise in unvaccinated children appears to be driven by affluent parents choosing not to immunize. Many do so because they fear the shots could trigger autism, a concern widely discredited in medical research.
But with autism rates rising, some parents find that fear more worrisome than the chance that their child could contract diseases that, while now very rare in this country, can still be deadly.
Last year, a 7-year-old boy triggered a measles outbreak in San Diego after he returned, infected, from a family trip to Switzerland. His parents had chosen not to vaccinate him or his siblings.
“The more children we have in our communities that are not immunized, the more likely we are going to have massive outbreaks,” said Dr. Gil Chavez, deputy director of the California Department of Public Health’s Center for Infectious Diseases.
In all, more than 10,000 kindergartners started school last fall with vaccine exemptions, up from about 8,300 the previous school year. In 1997, when enrollment was higher, the number of exempted kindergartners was 4,318.
Many children have already been greatly harmed because of such negligence. The timing of this news is just perfect considering Jenny McCarthy is releasing a new book and is about to pop up on every credulous TV show willing to have her.
