"They have to get the shot." Three cheers for Donald Trump. No, we really mean it. The president is supposed to be the leader of the nation, and on Friday Trump took on the mantle in calling for Americans to get vaccinated as the country is suffering a measles outbreak, much of it here in New York.
Trump, who used to play a dangerous game of footsie with the anti-vaxxer kooks, instead became Public Health Officer No. 1. Vaccines do not cause autism. But measles do cause death.
Measles was once considered wiped out in the United States, but the kooks have had success in spreading their lies into the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn and Rockland County and hundreds have contracted the disease.
Listening to real health experts, Trump said, "the vaccinations are so important. This is going around now. They have to get their shots." Yes. Yes. Yes.
Just like Mayor de Blasio has been focusing on measles in Williamsburg and County Executive Ed Day in Rockland, the president needs to help fight this health emergency, which has also produced a quarantine at two California universities. It's not just a harmless childhood ailment of red dots. Measles can, and does, kill.
And the vaccine is safe and effective. And mandatory for kids in school, except those claiming a religious exemption.
The drive in Albany to end that exemption is commendable. No faith believes in spreading disease, Judaism included. A deadly and very contagious plague that can be stopped with a completely benign medicine must be eliminated and stay eliminated. This horrible episode has proved one thing: That the vaccine does work and without it everyone is at risk.
The fight against measles isn't about finding a way to prevent the disease; we've long had the vaccine. It's about finding a way to make people get the shot, as Trump rightly says. Science has succeeded, but public enlightenment has failed. Trump's welcome words can only help rectify that.
