Germany takes action to stem measles outbreak. Anti-vaxxers to blame–again.

Measles is on the rise in Europe, driven by "vaccine gaps" which in turn are due to misinformation about the benefits of vaccines. Vaccines are possibly the single greatest contribution to human health in the past century. Literally millions of people are alive today who would not be, thanks to vaccines.

And yet: vaccine rates have dropped in recent years in multiple countries. In March, the BBC reported that measles had become endemic (meaning that it is self-sustaining, continuing to spread within the country) in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and Ukraine. The worst measles outbreak is in Romania, which reported over 3,400 cases and 17 deaths in just the first 3 months of this year.

Now measles is spreading in Germany, which is scrambling to contain it. Germany had 504 cases through mid-April, versus just 33 cases for the same period last year. At least one person, a young mother of three children, has died. The primary reason for the spread of the disease, as reported by the German news outlet RT, is unvaccinated individuals, and the reason their numbers are growing is simple: the anti-vaccine movement.

In the U.S., the anti-vaccine movement caused the worst measles outbreak in 20 years in 2015. The outbreak in Germany appears even worse, despite the fact that parents can be fined as much as €2500 ($2800) for failing to vaccinate their children. In a remarkable effort to try to get this outbreak under control, the German parliament has decided to require kindergartens to report parents who don't vaccinate their kids. Let's hope this works.

Vaccination is safe and remarkably effective, but the anti-vax movement is furiously trying to convince parents not to vaccinate. Their latest gambit is "Vaxxed," a conspiracy-mongering anti-vaccine screen produced by Andrew Wakefield, the notorious ex-doctor who published a fraudulent (and later retracted) study claiming that MMR vaccines caused autism. Nearly 20 years later, despite Wakefield losing his medical license because of his "elaborate fraud," he continues to push his debunked claims.

Fortunately, many people are now pushing back. Just last week, noted New Zealand physician Dr. Lance O'Sullivan jumped up on stage at a screening of "Vaxxed" to warn people in the audience that they were being defrauded. O'Sullivan was named New Zealander of the Year in 2014 for his efforts to bring health care to disadvantaged people in rural areas. I will close with his words from a Radio New Zealand story describing the dangers of vaccine refusal:

"We are trying to save a child's life, we put it on a helicopter, it flies to Starship Hospital. The kidneys are failing, its heart's failing, its lungs are failing. All because we didn't put a bloody $7.50 meningococcal vaccine into that child's thigh."