THE TOLL OF THE ANTI-VACCINATION MOVEMENT, IN ONE DEVASTATING GRAPHIC.

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Aaron Carroll today offers a graphic depiction of the toll of the anti-vaccination movement. It comes from a Council on Foreign Relations interactive map of vaccine-preventable outbreaks  worldwide 2008-2014. Measles is endemic in the underdeveloped world because of the unavailability of the MMR vaccine. But in the developed world its an artifact of the anti-vaccination movement, which has associated the vaccine with autism. That connection, promoted by the discredited British physician Andrew Wakefield and the starlet Jenny McCarthy, has been thoroughly debunked. But its effects live on, as the map shows. Full story available at: http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-antivaccination-movement-20140120,0,5576371.story#axzz2ry8XC3Ir