menuWhile measles seems to be making an ugly comeback in the United States, France has decided to do something about preventable diseases by making vaccines mandatory.
That said, just because they have the legislation doesn’t mean that vaccination is any less of a contentious issue in France than it is in the U.S. According to a study in Science Mag, France is the most skeptical country about vaccine safety.
A study in 1998 that has since been deemed “fake news” (actual fake news, the doctor who did the study falsified the data) claimed that vaccinations could cause autism in children. Since then, some parents have been choosing not to vaccinate their kids. In France, that means that there have been 24,000 cases of measles across France between 2008 and 2016, according to the countries’ National Public Health Agency.
So, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe decided to do something about the epidemic and announced it will be mandatory for parents to vaccinate their children starting in 2018. Currently three vaccines are mandatory for children in France. The new law will add nine more vaccines to the mandatory list.
Learn more about the new legislation, and the harmful vaccination debate, in the video above.
