Parents who decline vaccines may not realize that they're gambling with the lives of not just their kids, but all the children around them, says Patsy Stinchfield, director of pediatric infectious disease at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, where Landon was treated. Measles can kill by causing pneumonia, brain inflammation and other complications, Stinchfield says. Babies too young to be vaccinated and people with compromised immune systems, such as those with cancer, are especially vulnerable. They rely on others around them to keep the virus out of circulation, a phenomenon known as "herd immunity," which protects even those who can't be vaccinated, she says.
And Offit notes that measles — which killed 3,000 to 5,000 Americans a year in the pre-vaccine days — continues to kill. More than 164,000 people died of the disease in 2008, the World Health Organization says.
