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The United States has recorded 1,001 measles cases so far this year in the worst outbreak of the highly contagious disease in more than a quarter-century, federal health officials said on Wednesday as they issued a new plea for parents to vaccinate their children. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 61 new cases have been reported since May 27 of the sometimes deadly disease. It is the highest number of cases since 1992, when the CDC recorded 2,126 cases. (6/5)

Anti-vaccine activists held their second rally here in several weeks Tuesday night, questioning vaccine safety in a community battling its worst measles outbreak in nearly 30 years, amid protests by health officials and pro-vaccine parents. The event, which barred reporters, featured conspiracy theorist Rabbi Hillel Handler and Del Bigtree, head of one of the nation’s most active anti-vaccine groups and producer of a film alleging the government suppressed a link between the measles vaccine and autism (studies involving hundreds of thousands of children have repeatedly disproved such a link). (Guarino and Sun, 6/5)

As the rate of new measles cases in New York City has slowed, so too has the momentum behind a legislative bill in Albany that would repeal the religious exemption to New York’s school vaccination requirements. The bill, which would repeal an exception to school vaccination requirements for parents’ “genuine and sincere religious beliefs,” has stalled in the health committee of the state Assembly with just two weeks left before the legislature breaks for the summer. (West, 6/5)

Close to 75 percent of 1,713 surveyed adults think that parents should vaccinate their children, a new Public Policy Institute of California poll released on Wednesday showed. Nearly eight in 10 said they worry a recent nationwide outbreak of 981 measles cases will continue to spread. There are 47 reported cases in California. (Wiley, 6/5)