Vaccination aversion has fueled measles and whooping cough outbreaks, study finds

A comprehensive new study of measles and pertussis outbreaks in the United States suggests that adults’ reluctance or refusal to vaccinate themselves and their children has played a key role in the resurgence of diseases that had been largely eradicated in this country.

In an analysis published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., epidemiologists scoured reports of measles and pertussis outbreaks to glean what role vaccination refusal and hesitance played. They also considered the effect of waning immunity among those who were vaccinated.

In measles outbreaks, the role of the unvaccinated was powerful, they found. Of 1,416 measles cases since the disease ceased to circulate in the United States in 2000, 57% were in people who had no history being vaccinated. About 70% of these patients were unvaccinated due to nonmedical exemptions.

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