has had more than 1,200 cases of measles, after a record number of nearly 2,000 cases last year. The country once recorded only several dozen cases every year.



Last month, emergency vaccination clinics were held every weekend in Wales, the epicenter of the outbreak. Immunization drives also have started elsewhere in the country, with officials aiming to reach 1 million children aged 10 to 16.



"This is the legacy of the Wakefield scare," said Dr. David Elliman, spokesman for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, referring to a paper published in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues Breast Cancer North Face Fleece that is widely rejected by scientists.



That work suggested a link between autism and the combined childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, called the MMR. medical groups and the paper was eventually retracted by the journal that published it. As part of his research, Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son's birthday party, paying them about 5 pounds each, and later joked about the incident. as fearful parents abandoned the vaccine, from rates over 90 percent to 54 percent. Wakefield has won support from north face womens pink ribbon denali jacket parents suspicious of vaccines, including celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, who has an autistic son.



Nearly 15 years later, the rumors about MMR are still having an impact. Now there's "this group of older children who have never been immunized who are a large pool of infections," Elliman said.



The first measles vaccines were introduced in the 1960s, which dramatically cut cases of the rashcausing illness. Since 2001, measles deaths have dropped by about 70 percent worldwide; Cambodia recently marked more than a year without a single case.



Globally, though, measles is still one of the leading causes of death in children under 5 and kills more than 150,000 people every year, mostly in developing countries. Measles is highly contagious and is spread by coughing, sneezing and close personal contact with infected people; symptoms include a fever, cough, and a rash on the face.