The antivaccine hysteria among well-educated, affluent parents I find especially galling. A population’s “herd immunity” starts to collapse and permit infectious epidemics when as few as 6 percent forgo immunization. In dozens of New York City private schools, the rate rose to more than 30 percent. In the richest section of Los Angeles—Malibu to Santa Monica down to Marina del Rey, through Beverly Hills and Brentwood to West Hollywood—the fraction of preschoolers with Personal Belief Exemptions exceeded 9 percent, four times the rate in L.A. County at large. In plenty of West L.A. private
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