Obama To Parents: ‘Get Your Kids Vaccinated’

President Barack Obama urged American parents to get their children fully vaccinated on Sunday, amid growing concerns over an outbreak of measles, a highly contagious airborne disease, in the western United States.

“I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations,” Obama said in a pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on Sunday. “The science is, you know, pretty indisputable. We’ve looked at this again and again. There is every reason to get vaccinated, but there aren’t reasons to not.”

“You should get your kids vaccinated,” he added. “It’s good for them and the challenge you have is if you have a certain group of kids who don’t get vaccinated, and if it grows large enough that a percentage of the population doesn’t get vaccinated and they’re the folks who can’t get vaccinated, small infants, for example … they suddenly become much more vulnerable.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are at least 102 reported cases of measles in 14 states.

Excerpts of the president’s interview with NBC were released on Sunday night. The full interview is scheduled to air on Monday.