From the newsroom of the Washington Post

It's Robert Samuels from the Washington Post

Post is Sarah Kaplan

Hi, this is Elaheiz Adi with the Washington Post

This is Post Reports. I'm Martin Powers

It's Tuesday, May 28

Today, the roots of the anti-vax movement

Trump's softened tone on Iran and the surprising success of green candidates in Europe

So when we talk about vaccine safety, how many people have heard every single news agency in the country say vaccines are safe and effective?

Get ready folks because that is going to come crashing down right now

The anti-vax groups in the United States have lots of different ways to reach people

They have been increasingly organizing around social media

But they also double down and have been increasing their physical presence in community meetings, in distributing pamphlets and showing up at public hearings to testify about bills

My name is Lena Sun, I'm a health reporter for the Washington Post

Lena has been reporting on the current measles outbreak in the US, the largest in decades

Many of the cases have been concentrated in ultra-orthodox Jewish communities in New York

And even as public health officials are working to contain this disease, anti-vaccine advocates are still showing up in these communities telling people not to vaccinate

Several of the most prominent anti-vaxers showed up at a community meeting to answer, quote unquote, questions about the measles vaccine

Imagine this, hundreds of people in this ballroom, you are having a measles outbreak that is the longest lasting and worst in, oh, three decades

Children are sick in the hospital, unbreathing tubes

And these people are telling the audience that they should not get vaccinated, that measles is a benign disease and the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease

So these kinds of meetings or events, they're happening now, even after this huge measles outbreak

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