New Republic writer Julia Ioffe came down with whooping cough at the age of 31. So far, pertussis has caused her 72 days of hacking misery and counting. Unlike some people we could name, Ioffe’s parents had the sense to vaccinate against pertussis as a child. The vaccine doesn’t last forever, but until recently, it hasn’t been necessary for adults to get whooping cough booster shots because parents had the good sense to vaccinate their children against this onetime mass-killer of infants. As vaccination rates have fallen, pertussis incidence has more than tripled in 21 states between 2011 and 2012.

Jenny McCarthy, aka “The Girl with the Whooping Cough,” is a B-movie actress turned anti-vaccine crusader who, unaccountably, co-hosts The View on ABC. She has become the most recognizable face of the anti-vaccination movement. McCarthy has done more than anyone to hype baseless theories about the non-existent link between vaccines and autism. (The original “Girl With the Whooping Cough” was a 1910 farce about a woman who spreads pertussis to all the men she kisses, until her victims finally drag her to court. Imagine the pitch: It’s like Typhoid Mary, but funny!)

The anti-vaccine movement wraps itself in the mantle of “personal choice,” but Ioffe reminds us that their choices endanger other people. The most vulnerable population are infants who are too young to be vaccinated, but who can’t write eloquently about their misery. Babies are dying because anti-vaxxers are imposing their crackpot theories on society by allowing their medically neglected children to become tiny vectors for disease.