AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Turning now to the nationwide measles outbreak, now the worst since 1992. The CDC logging 18 new cases last week alone, bringing the total to just over 1,000 for the year. And our next guest sounding the alarm about loopholes in vaccination requirements that could lead to further infections. Here to explain, the CEO of Independent Women's Voice, Heather Higgins.
...
EARHARDT: Tell us about the loopholes, because this is very scary, especially as a mom.
HEATHER HIGGINS (INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S VOICE): Yeah well, and you're a mom too, so you've written very movingly about what a gift Hayden is to you.
EARHARDT: Thank you.
HIGGINS: And she's three and a half now. But particularly when infants are small, we all see these measles outbreaks occurring all over the place. In fact, we're about to crack, we've already cracked 1,000. They're in 28 different states. The country's at risk of losing its elimination status if we continue to have this go through October. We were actually paying attention to this, because IWF has lots of women who work there, have a couple of new babies, we had our latest addition just a week ago. And Griff Jenkins was reporting about how this flood of immigrants no longer young men from South America, it was people from all over the world that he was seeing.
So one of our colleagues, who's an M.D., was curious and just went and looked up what are the CDC regs on this? Well it turns out there's an enormous loophole. If you're coming into the country and you're a legal immigrant, we very sensibly have all these, much like other countries, vaccination requirements that you're supposed to fill. But if you're coming in any other way, including as an illegal immigrant, even one who's apprehended, there's no such requirement for you. So we created a petition at IWV.org asking people to have sensible vaccination requirements for people coming in to the country.
EARHARDT: Yes, that makes sense to protect all of the kids that are here already, and individuals.
