Between January and July of this year, 131 cases of measles have been reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One single outbreak in Illinois affected 30 individuals but people in 15 states and the District of Columbia have come down with infection from the measles virus. Europe and Asia are reporting soaring numbers of measles infection, too.

The consensus among public health officials is that parents who mistakenly link autism to the vaccinations developed to ward off some of the most common childhood diseases may be responsible for the growing number of measles cases. Of the childhood diseases for which vaccination is recommended, measles is the most virulent, often coming first in areas where the vaccination rate is on the decline.

Thus far, the 2008 rate of measles infection is higher than all others since 1996. In the ten-year period before measles vaccinations were routinely administered, almost 4 million Americans were infected with the measles virus. Almost 500 people died, 1,000 more were left with chronic disabilities, and 48,000 required hospitalization.

Of the measles cases in the US this year, most of them had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown. Babies younger than one year are too young for the measles vaccine but 16 infants too young to be vaccinated have fallen ill with measles. Of the rest of the cases, 63 of them, representing two-thirds the remaining cases, occurred in people who had not been vaccinated because they or their parents held religious or philosophical beliefs that prohibit vaccination.

Before 2001, mercury was often used as a preservative in many commonly administered vaccines. The mercury in childhood vaccines is thought to be the reason for the growing number of autism cases in the US although repeated scientific studies have disproved the theory. In spite of scientific evidence to the contrary, mercury has been removed almost entirely from childhood vaccines.

Even with a growing number of parents opting out of routine vaccination for their children, the CDC’s latest statistics indicate about 95% of all school-age children in the US have had at least one shot of the combined vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella.