To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate: The Celebs Weigh In

It may not be a spoonful of sugar, but would a celebrity endorsement make that vaccination shot a little easier to bear? With the rise in prominence of celebrity vaccine skeptics, vaccine makers are responding with their own celebrity endorsements.

Bad Astronomy reports that the manufacturers of the pertussis (or whooping cough) vaccine are featuring Jennifer Lopez in a video encouraging parents to vaccinate themselves and their children against the malady, while USA Today notes that the flu shot is borrowing a move straight from Wheaties boxes, pulling in backing from Kristi Yamaguchi and Sheryl Swoopes.

There's really nothing unusual about celebrities having -- and sharing -- their opinions about medical science. Case in point, Tom Cruise's infamous prescription for postpartum depression (or just about anything else that ails you): vitamins and exercise. But vaccine skeptics have been unusual for how much of a following they've gathered.

Chris Mooney, writing for Discover, recently called the outbreak of high-profile vaccine skeptics a sign of decadence, adding:

In the context of human history and the past century, these people are surfing atop a wave of prosperity and scientific advancement that has given them marvelously prosperous and pleasant lives. There's simply no way they could deny vaccination if vaccination hadn't already delivered a world where the measles, the mumps, polio, and so on, are seemingly nonexistent. . . . Of course, it seems a safe assumption that the indulgence will end quickly indeed if vaccine-vanquished diseases start coming back.

That seems like a safe assumption, but, unless we're talking about an epidemic, maybe not. Pertussis has jumped up from just over 1,000 cases in 1976 to more than 25,000 in 2004 -- and yet the star power of "Jenny from the block" is still needed to encourage vaccinations. Though some other diseases may seem long gone, they could be just a plane ride away. Measles and polio, for example, may have been largely eradicated in the United States, but globally both are still very much a presence. In fact, just last month, the World Health Organization warned that if vaccine efforts against measles weren't maintained globally, a resurgence was likely.