经济学人下载:反疫苗活动家 独领风骚

Anti-vaccine campaigners
反疫苗活动家

Clueless
独领风骚

Celebrities make us sick
听信名人的话让我们生病

JENNY MCCARTHY, a celebrity who introduced herself to the world on the pages of Playboy 20 years ago, is the proud owner of a Pigasus award, bestowed every April Fool's day on “the performer who fooled the greatest number of people using the least talent”. Ms McCarthy, an anti-vaccination campaigner, says she is not opposed to vaccination. But she has defended debunked claims that jabs can trigger autism, and reckons her son was cured of his autism through vitamins and diet. More recently the anti-vaccination cause has been taken up by Alicia Silverstone, an actress whose name may now forever be linked to “Clueless” (pictured), a 1995 update of Jane Austen's Emma in which she starred.
珍妮·麦卡锡是一位名人，她因20年前出任花花公子杂志封面女郎而一举成名。她很自豪拥有Pigasus奖，该奖项于每年愚人节颁发给那些“用很少的才智愚弄了大多数人的演员”。麦卡锡女士是一名反疫苗活动家，她称自己不反对接种疫苗。但她坚持宣称接种疫苗会导致孤独症，而且还认为自己儿子通过维生素和食疗治好了孤独症。最近艾丽西亚·西尔维斯通发起了反疫苗运动，她是一名演员，如今她的名字可能会永远和“独领风骚”（如图所示）联系在一起，她担任了该电影的女主角，该电影上映于1995年，是现代版的简·奥斯丁的《艾玛》。

Whooping cough (pertussis), a contagious bacterial infection that is deeply unpleasant for adults and can be fatal for small children, was supposed to have been largely eradicated from the United States, thanks to widespread vaccination. Infections fell from 222,202 in 1941 to 1,010 in 1976. But lately it has made an unwelcome return. In 2012 48,277 cases were reported, the highest figure in over half a century. On June 13th California declared an epidemic; 3,458 cases, including two deaths, have been reported so far this year. Other parts of the country, including Tennessee and Alabama, have also seen big rises, and there has been a worrying climb in measles cases.
百日咳是一种接触传染的细菌性感染疾病，对于成人来说非常讨厌，而对儿童来说可能会致命。由于疫苗的广泛普及，该疾病在美国几乎已经绝迹。感染病例从1941年的222,202降低到了1976年的1,010。但后来它又死灰复燃。2012年报告的病例有48,277例，这是近半个世纪以来病例最多的一年。今年6月13号加州宣布疫情，发现病例3,458例，迄今为止有两人死亡。美国的其它州，包括田纳西州和阿拉巴马州，感染病例人数也大幅度增加，而且麻疹病例人数也开始增多，这非常令人担忧。

Ms McCarthy and her ill-informed followers bear only part of the blame. At least as important is the phasing-out, in the 1990s, of an old vaccine which had nasty side-effects. The immunity conferred by the replacement appears to wear off sooner; health officials urge older children and adults to take a booster jab, but few do. Still, kooky anti-vaccination fears appear to be doing real harm. A study of a 2010 whooping-cough epidemic in California, in which ten babies died, found that areas where many people refused to vaccinate their kids were 2.5 times likelier to have high incidences of whooping cough. No such study has been conducted on this year's outbreak, although the wealthy coastal enclaves of Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties are among the hardest-hit.
麦卡锡和她那一无所知的同事们对此负有一部分责任。至少重要的是，在20世纪90年代，一部分产生了严重副作用的老疫苗被逐步淘汰，而更换的新疫苗产生的免疫力已经渐渐消退；卫生官员们督促那些年龄较大的儿童和成人再去注射疫苗以刺激免疫力，但是几乎没人去做。古怪的反疫苗情绪似乎造成了实质性的伤害。2010年加州曾经流行过百日咳，造成了10名婴儿死亡，对该疫情的一个研究发现大部分人都拒绝为孩子注射疫苗的地区百日咳疫情发生率是其他地区的2.5倍。尽管今年马林、纳帕和索诺玛郡富裕的沿海围地是疫情最严重的地区，但没有人对这次疾病爆发的数据进行研究。

Listening to the ideas of Californian celebrities has not always been bad for Americans, as Ronald Reagan demonstrated. But when it comes to vaccination, probably best to leave it to the experts.
就如罗纳德·里根所说，听听加州名人们的观点对美国人没有坏处。但是当提到疫苗时，最好去关注专家的意见吧。