There was a breakout of measles, the first one since 1991. The school in question, a charter school in San Diego, has the highest percentage of students not vaccinated for measles of any school in the city. Ten percent of the student body there are not vaccinated with the MMR vaccine. This is right on the threshold of the herd immunity and at these levels of lack of immunity, breakouts can occur.

Parents of these children chose not to vaccinate their kids:

Parents can obtain vaccination exemptions for their children based on medical, religious or personal reasons.

Some parents fear that inoculations contain thimerosal, which includes mercury and might cause autism or other diseases.

“Carefully performed scientific studies have found no relationship between (the) vaccine and autism,” said the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Moreover, school and health officials stress that the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella does not contain thimerosal or mercury.

There has been a lot of blogging recently on the lack of a correlation between thimerosal in vaccines an autism rates. This hypothesis is unsubstantiated and irresponsible, harming children and bringing back deadly, infectious diseases into the community. This occurs directly after ABC irresponsibly airs a drama about a trial lawyer who fights against the evil corporations for making our kids autistic. Irresonsible and dangerous to the community at large:

"Indeed, it was so bad that the American Academy of Pediatrics actually took the step of drafting a public letter to ABC asking it either to can the show or run a disclaimer stating that science does not support the contention in Eli Stone that mercury in vaccines is a major cause of autism. In response, David Kirby, the Energizer Bunny of the mercury militia, posted a predictable screed accusing the AAP of trying to 'censor' ABC, a truly hilarious proposition, given that ABC and its parent company Disney probably spend more in a day than the entire yearly budget of the AAP--and it has the airwaves as well. Equally predictably the 'luminaries' of the mercury militia lapped it up, gloating that ABC's running the show was some sort of victory." - Orac

Truth, especially in this kind of hot button issue is very important. People are easily influenced by what they see in drama, because so much of it reflects real situations. When information is put forth in a matter-of-fact way, no wonder people can believe it. It is not about censorship of creativity; it is about being responsible.

For a list of recent research around vaccines please visit this link.