Azar praises Trump for public change on vaccines

HHS Secretary General Alex Azar said today that a measles outbreak has infected at least 704 people, the highest number in 25 years, and congratulated President Donald Trump for urging American parents vaccinate their children after years of claims that vaccines are the cause of autism.

Azar said that Trump's statements during the 2016 campaign linking immunization to autism were based on a "debate on this issue, but it has been resolved." The scientific community has generated definitive information so that we can reassure each parent that there is no link. "

History continues below

"The president is very clear about the fact that children must be vaccinated, that parents must make sure that they are up to date," Azar told reporters during a call. "Most of us have never seen these devastating diseases and that's what we want to keep – they belong to the history books and not to the emergency rooms."

Scientists immediately challenged the 1998 document linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or the MMR vaccine, and autism. This newspaper was removed by the newspaper that published it in 2010. But Trump reiterated this statement during his campaign and met its author, British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield.

The epidemic resulted in the hospitalization of 66 people, mostly children.

At the same time, public health officials have reported progress in the fight against measles as it wraps up its traditional season in the Western Hemisphere. According to Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's Immunization Center, an outbreak has ended in total 72 times, while cases persist in some orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and northern New York State.

"The longer they persist, the more measles will move to the United States," she said, noting that controlling the spread of measles by public health authorities averaged $ 32,000 per case.