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President
Barack Obama
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President
Barack Obama is urging parents to get their children vaccinated in the face of
a measles outbreak that has infected more than 100 people in the United States.
In
excerpts from an interview with NBC News that will air on Monday, Obama said measles
was a preventable disease, according to AFP.
He
said that while he understood there were families concerned about the effect of
vaccinations, he said the science was "pretty indisputable."
"We've
looked at this again and again. There is every reason to get vaccinated, but
there aren't reasons to not," he said, adding: "You should get your
kids vaccinated."
He
said the larger the group of unvaccinated people, the more vulnerable it made
small infants and people who cannot get vaccinations because of health issues.
There
have been 91 measles cases in California, with at least 58 of those
epidemiologically linked to a cluster that began at Disneyland in December.
More than a dozen other cases have been confirmed in 13 other U.S. states and
in Mexico.
No
deaths have been reported in connection with the outbreak, which public health
officials suspect began when an infected person from outside the United States
visited Disneyland in Anaheim, California, between Dec. 15 and Dec. 20.
The
measles outbreak has renewed a debate over the so-called anti-vaccination
movement in which fears about potential side effects of vaccines, fueled by
now-debunked research suggesting a link to autism, have led a small minority of
parents to refuse to allow their children to be inoculated.
Some
parents also opt not to have their children vaccinated for religious or other
reasons.
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