El_hammy

Hi Paul,

David Hamilton here! Being in Puerto Rico we were hit with the ZIKA virus and the resulting cases of microcephaly. Do you know what stage vaccine development is at and whether it is still progressing as a priority? Thanks and great AmA

The worst measles outbreak in Minnesota since 1990 has just been declared over. Do you feel that the anti-vaccine campaign in the USA has not been taken seriously enough and more needs to be done to educate? With movies such as Vaxxed being produced and celebrities endorsing the campaign it has me concerned.

That's great that it's progressing and Puerto Rico playing its part in the clinical trials. They are expected to conclude in 2019 so I guess a potential vaccine is still quite a few years away.

Yes and unfortunately it seems more and more that people aren't willing to be open to facts. Sorry I should have defined the campaign as being specific to the movie Vaxxed - they have a nationwide bus tour that is currently still ongoing, with speaking events in cities etc. I believe in each area the antivax community is getting behind them. It also didn't help that at the 'top government level' there was a promise to develop a vaccine safety commission to investigate a link with autism despite numerous studies having already disproven a link. So it may have the potential to organize into something more coherent (maybe around Robert F. Kennedy Jr).

Yes it was great to see the March for Science! It's definitely needed and it's great to see scientists like yourself and Paul using social media like this to make yourselves available.