Adapted from blog.washingtonpost.com/checkup

Vaccines: The Debate Continues

Do news reports about vaccination risks -- and particularly the MMR's supposed link to autism -- give you pause?

Last month, the federal government agreed to pay an Atlanta family whose daughter developed autism after receiving vaccines against five diseases (including measles, mumps and rubella) at one time.

But in February, the Archives of Disease in Childhood, the journal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, published results of a good-sized study that showed, as have several studies before, that there's no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.

I don't remember actually making a decision to vaccinate my own kids. But nowadays, some parents -- often clusters of like-minded ones -- are opting out.

Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, half a million Americans a year got measles; 500 died from the illness each year. In an odd way, wiping out that disease has made room for us to worry about other ones.

I know it's hard to keep the interests of society at large in mind when you're worrying about that precious babe in your arms. But aren't parents who opt not to vaccinate banking on others' willingness to vaccinate their kids? It isn't fair for only some of us to shoulder that risk -- even if it's just a perceived risk.