Three illnesses, Measles, Mumps, and Rubella, are prevented by one vaccine (MMR), which is now standard to administer to children between 12-15 months and again at 4-6 years. This has been a very effective strategy for medical and public health officials to use, and until recently triggered very little controversy. Back in early 2015, the issue was treated as nonpartisan.
Things have changed. With the election of Donald Trump and his vocal support for both disproven vaccine-autism links and anti-vaccination champions such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., things are not as they were. That's a dangerous place to be if your main concern is the public interest.
It's a dangerous place because politics injects a hazardous and unpredictable factor of partisanship into what should be a clear policy and science debate. It isn't whether Trump is right or wrong about vaccines, it's that people shouldn't be taking sides on the question. Yet if vaccination policy is infused with partisanship, that's exactly what will happen.
