Vaccine skeptics on the rise

The measles outbreak that began at California's Disneyland Resort last month is part of a new trend that worries public health officials. Large outbreaks in the U.S. of the highly infectious disease have become more common in the past two years, even though measles hasn't been indigenous since 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the same time, persuading skeptical parents to vaccinate their children has grown more difficult because concerns about a possible link between vaccines and autism—now debunked by science—have expanded to more general, and equally groundless, worries about the effects of multiple shots on a child's immune system, vaccine experts and doctors say. [Subscription Required]