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Now, with a measles outbreak that has affected 121 people in 17 states and Washington, D.C. — and an unusually high number of cases last year, 644 — people who refuse to vaccinate their children have become a focus of resentment and concern. Laws that allow parents to opt out of immunization are also coming under scrutiny. Can the government go further? Can officials require that citizens receive vaccines? The answer, legal experts say, is yes. The authority to require vaccination belongs to the states. (Grady, 2/16)

As pediatricians struggle to confront the emergence of diseases such as measles and pertussis, or whooping cough, many are re-evaluating how best to respond to parents at a time when the culture of medicine has shifted from doctors as patronizing know-it-alls to listeners who engage parents as partners. Some like Dr. [Paul] Offit say that when it comes to a public-health issue such as vaccines, the matter is black and white. Doctors need to be more assertive about insisting on the vaccine schedule outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they say. (Reddy, 2/16)

It’s an epidemic that has killed 32 babies and infected at least 100,000 Americans — most of them children — since 2012. But vaccine-averse parents aren’t the real culprits behind the spread of whooping cough. Inadequate vaccines are. The disease has returned in recent years with a ferocity that’s unlikely to abate anytime soon. Even Americans who thought they were protected have fallen ill. Yet whooping cough’s resurgence hasn’t triggered the public attention and congressional hearings that several dozen measles cases traced to Disneyland provoked in barely a month. (Allen, 2/15)