July 20, 2013.

Fifteen Years After Autism Panic, a Plague of Measles Erupts

"You're a traitor!" yelled the boy. "You're a thought-criminal! You're a Eurasian spay! I'll shoot, I'll vaporize you, I'll send you to the salt mines!"

PORT TALBOT, Wales----When the telltale rash appeared behind Aleshia Jenkin's ears, her grandmother knew exactly what caused it: a decision she'd made 15 years earlier.

Suddenly they were both leaping around him, shouting "Traitor!" and "Thought-criminal!", the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gamboling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of calculating ferocity in the boy's eye, a quite evident desire to hit or kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so. It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston thought.

Ms. Jenkins was an infant in 1998, when this region of southwest Wales was a hotbed of resistance to a vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Many here refused the vaccine for their children after a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, suggested it might cause autism and a local newspaper heavily covered the fears. Resistance continued even after the autism link was disproved.

Mrs. Parsons's eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children, and back again. In the better light of the living room he noticed with interest that there actually was dust in the creases of her face.

The bill was now come due.