Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control announced that the U.S. has seen more cases of measles than at any time since 1996 in the last six months—and its stories like that that have caught the attention of Amanda Peet, among others concerned about the resurgence. In Europe and the U.K., children are dying of measles. Declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, as recently as the early 1960s, as many as 500 children in this country died every year from the viral disease, characterized by a red rash and highly infectious cough.

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SA: How infectious is measles?

JS: It’s the most highly infectious virus there is. If you have 100 unvaccinated people in a room and a person with measles walks in and coughs, 90 people or more will get measles. It’s just very, very infectious. Coughing will aersolize the virus.

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SA: What advice do you have for parents who are concerned about vaccinating their child?

JS: I encourage them to talk to their physician and get the best available information on what they are concerned about. There is a lot of misinformation on the web. We all use it a lot, but there’s a lot of misinformation there.

This vaccine has never contained thimerosal [a mercury-derived preservative linked by some to autism.] We don’t consider that involved in causing autism but thimerosal was not included [in the measles vaccine].