British Columbia now has the dubious distinction of having their largest measles outbreak EVER recorded in the province.

There have been 320 confirmed cases of the VACCINE-PREVENTABLE disease.

Seriously, in 2014, in one of the greatest countries for healthcare, and in one of the best provinces in that country (sorry, it will always be home), enough people decided not to vaccinate their children to lead to an outbreak.

Apparently it can all trace back to a church where a pastor says he sees vaccines as an interference with God’s providential care.

Right. See Mr. Pastor, here’s where you are wrong. God helped us create things to make us stronger. You know vaccines to prevent diseases, medicine to cure the ones we can’t prevent, fire so we don’t have to eat raw meat, locks to prevent petty theft (you know trust in god, but lock your car). How is putting so many people as risk of an awful disease in any way part of God’s plan?

And that is just my ability to argue this from a vaguely faith-based standpoint, I can also throw a bunch of science out there, but the reality is only one point really matters – vaccines DO NOT cause autism. They haven’t and they won’t.

But you don’t have to take my word for it because this open letter to parents concerned about getting their children vaccinated does a great job of comparing all of the scientific data with a whole lot of messaging from the other side. I highly recommend the read.

And if that doesn’t help, there is always Penn and Teller (language warning).