Steadily weakening vaccination coverage in Britain and four other countries is undermining efforts to eradicate measles across Europe and increasing the threat to the United States. An unfounded fear that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is causing autism is making rising numbers of people sick.

For example, British measles infections are rising rapidly today. In the United States, in the first seven months of last year, 89 percent of the 131 cases of measles reported “were imported from or associated with importations from other countries, particularly countries in Europe, where several outbreaks are ongoing,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. “Measles is one of the first diseases to reappear when vaccination coverage rates fall,” CDC noted.

EUVac, a European network for tracking vaccine-preventable diseases, found Europeans have also taken measles to South America, which was previously free of the disease. EUVac blamed Britain, Germany, Romania, Switzerland, and Italy.

Europeans have taken measles to South America, which was previously free of the disease.

The MMR vaccine has cut death from measles worldwide from roughly 750,000 in 2000 to 197,000 in 2007, according to the World Health Organization. Two-thirds of the reduction was in Africa, where deaths dropped by 89 percent. In rich countries, measles is often viewed as a nuisance—indeed, there were only seven deaths in Europe out of 12,132 cases in 2006 and 2007, according to EUVac. However, such a statistic hides the long-term consequences of the disease and the suffering it creates. Even if measles does not kill you, it can cause pneumonia and miscarriage. Rubella can cause miscarriage or stillbirth and can leave surviving children with heart defects, deaf-blindness, and other organ damage. Before the introduction of the MMR vaccine in 1969, mumps was the most common cause of viral meningitis. Mumps can also cause encephalitis in children and young adults and can sterilize men.

Despite the importance of vaccination to healthy children and adults, the commitment to vaccination in the West is weakening. Why? A connection between the MMR vaccine and autism was first claimed in 1998, in a controversial study led by British scientist Andrew Wakefield. Numerous flaws—including a small sample (12 children), no control group, and unresolved reverse causality (the vaccine is given around the same age that autism is generally diagnosed)—led 10 of the study’s 12 authors to recant in 2004, saying “no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient.”

Nearly a quarter of children in Britain are not getting the two doses required for total immunity.

But because signs of autism often appear around when children receive the MMR vaccine, “some parents may worry that the vaccine causes autism,” the CDC explains. And although measles, mumps, and rubella are relatively rare in Western countries (due mainly to widespread vaccination), diagnoses of autism have increased dramatically since the 1980s. The question of whether actual prevalence has increased remains unknown, as does the cause. But, faced with uncertainty, some parents are willing to avoid vaccinations, knowing that the risk to their own child will remain low as long as others are vaccinated.

Politicians are also spreading the uncertainty. During his presidential campaign Barack Obama said, “We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive.” But the science is, in fact, conclusive—there is no vaccination-autism connection. And while Obama went on to say that vaccines save lives, the damage from his public claim of suspicion was done.

It can be a bipartisan problem. During the presidential campaign, Republican Senator John McCain said of the rising autism rate, “there’s strong evidence that indicates it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.” But there is no such evidence. Despite this, the mercury-based preservative thimerosal was removed from most vaccines by 2001 to avoid any conceivable potential harm—and reports of autism have continued to rise.

Even if measles does not kill you, it can cause pneumonia and miscarriage.

In Great Britain during the first ten months of 2008, there were 1,049 cases of measles, more than 19 times higher than in 1998, when Wakefield published his study. The United States is heading the same way as the anti-MMR campaign gathers strength with celebrity figureheads, such as Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, and political endorsement.

Nearly a quarter of children in Britain are not getting the two doses required for total immunity, thus an outbreak is likely and up to 100,000 children could be infected if inoculations do not rise, warns the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency (HPA). This year Scotland became the only region in Britain to reach the 95 percent vaccination rate authorities recommend.

Children who were not vaccinated years ago remain “at real risk,” according to Dr. Mary Ramsay, an immunization expert at the HPA. In the United States last year, nearly all the victims were unvaccinated. Unfounded fear of a possible danger has created a real danger to all of us.

Roger Bate is the Legatum Fellow in Global Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Making a Killing, a book about counterfeit drugs. 

Deeper Dive: AEI has held several events on vaccines over the years including a book forum on vaccines featuring Dr. Paul Offit of the Childrens’ Hospital of Philadelphia and a conference on “Autism’s False Prophets” moderated by AEI scholar John E. Calfee.

Image by Darren Wamboldt/The Bergman Group.