"A growing number of children aren't getting required vaccinations for non-medical reasons. What will this new reality bring this school year?
As parents send their children back to school, some are grappling with a new worry: whether their children's classmates have received all their vaccinations.
An outbreak of measles in Texas this week shows why their concern is not without reason. Twenty-one people linked to a megachurch and its congregation have contracted the highly contagious disease, and the case has put a spotlight on falling vaccination rates in the U.S.
Measles was eradicated in the U.S. as of 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but outbreaks like the one in Texas are increasing, as is the percentage of parents choosing not to immunize their children, which has seen an uptick in recent years. Usually, the CDC expects to see 60 cases of measles per year, but there have been 135 cases of measles so far in 2013, and in 2011, more than 220 people were diagnosed with the disease.
This latest outbreak follows a rash of recent measles cases among New York's Orthodox Jewish population and an outbreak in San Diego in 2008."
