Forget the claims of climate change "hoax." Measles will get us first.
Especially with the likes of Rand Paul and Chris Christie as our medical experts.
What's even more frightening is the venue for their discussions: candidate soundbites.
You would think, just watching them, that this is a liberty issue, not a public health issue.
Christie waffled painfully when asked about the measles spikes in the U.S. as a result of misguided parents and their distrust of vaccines based on a nearly 20-year-old and long-discredited research report.
"We vaccinate our kids That's the best expression I can give you of my opinion," he said. "But I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that's the balance that the government has to decide. Not every vaccine is created equal and not every disease type is as great a public health threat as others."
Later in the day, Christie aides walked back his comments with a "clarification" statement.
"The governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated," they said in a statement from the governor's office. "At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate."
Let us guess: States' rights in vaccines are good. Obamavaccines are bad.
Meanwhile, Paul perfected the art of putting his foot in his mouth while saying absolutely nothing of substance.
"I think vaccines are one of the greatest medical breakthroughs that we have. I'm a big fan," he chirped in an quick interview on CNBC. But then he kicked his anti-government spiel into gear. "I've heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," he said. "I think the parents should have some input. The state doesn't own your children. Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom."
It's too bad there isn't a vaccine that can inoculate us against dumbness and politicians.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 102 measles cases in 14 states in January alone. For all of last year, there were 644 cases in 27 states. In 2013 there were fewer than 200 cases, and in 2012, just over 50.
This is the same childhood disease that CDC has said once killed - yes, killed - 530,217 people each year in this county, but then measles all but disappeared in the past 40 or so years after the safe and 99 percent effective vaccine was introduced.
Unlike the more deadly but less contagious Ebola, which prompted Chris Christie last October to quarantine a perfectly healthy and non-symptomatic nurse for four days after she had returned to New York from Sierra Leone, measles is highly contagious and its germs can remain airborne for hours. Some 90 percent of those exposed to it will get it if they are susceptible - in other words, unvaccinated. Every person who gets measles can spread it to 12 to 18 people, and it is transmissible and virtually undetectable for days before symptoms make it clear the patient has measles, not just flu or some other bug.
Yet, inconceivably, the same generation of moms and dads who won't let their children ride tricycles without helmets, and sport "baby on board" warning stickers and rail against drunk drivers are mindlessly signing school paperwork rejecting vaccinations for religious and personal preference grounds - often prompted by web sites hawking anti-government sentiment or selling nutritional supplements.
This bankrupt vaccine fraud began in the late 1990s with a later-thoroughly discredited and retracted study that purported to associate vaccination with autism. Some "believers" also talk about mercury in vaccines. The kind of mercury that used to be in vaccines was ethylmercury, which is eliminated from the body quickly, not the truly dangerous methylmercury. In any case, the measles vaccine no longer contains even ethylmercury.
Last month, as measles cases mounted from a Disneyland exposure, the Los Angeles Times published an outraged editorial blaming this movement of mind-numbed parents buying into the "anti-science stubborness" movement - a movement that won't "get over its ignorant and self-absorbed rejection of science."
There are some politicians who do get it, by the way.
"I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations. The science is pretty indisputable. We've looked at this again and again There is every reason to get vaccinated. There aren't reasons to not get vaccinated. You should get your kids vaccinated," said President Barack Obama.
And Hillary Rodham Clinton tweeted: "The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let's protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest."
Fortunately, most parents still get it, too. Among children born during 19942013, vaccination will prevent an estimated 322 million illnesses, 21 million hospitalizations, and 732,000 deaths during their lifetimes, according to CDC.