The social, political, environmental, and health-related consequences of conspiracy theories : problems and potential solutions

CBS News recently reported how one unvaccinated child may have sparked an outbreak of measles in the U.S. state of Minnesota, sickening 19 children and 2 adults (CBS News, 2014). The outbreak reportedly began when an unvaccinated two-year-old boy was taken to Kenya, where he contracted the measles virus. On returning to the United States the child became ill, but prior to being diagnosed he had passed on the virus to three children in a childcare center and to one household member. When contacts then multiplied, over 3,000 people had been exposed to the virus. While nine of the children who were ultimately infected were of an age to receive the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination that would have prevented infection, they had not received it. According to researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health, the majority of parents of the unvaccinated children feared that the MMR vaccine could cause autism (CBS News, 2014).