New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has previously courted controversy with actions on public health, walked into another dispute Monday by saying he favored "choice" for parents on what vaccines to provide their children.
Democrats went on the attack immediately, with a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee accusing Christie of pandering to the "radical, conspiracy theory base" of the Republican Party.
The governor's office quickly moved to clarify Christie's remarks, while insisting that his opponents were distorting his views.
The dispute began with a reporter's question in London, where Christie was visiting a pharmaceutical company, part of an overseas trade mission that also serves as a way to buff up the governor's foreign policy credentials for his widely expected presidential bid.
"There’s a debate going on right now in the United States, the measles outbreak that’s been caused in part by people not vaccinating their kids," the reporter noted. "Do you think Americans should vaccinate their kids? Is the measles vaccine safe?" he asked.
Christie responded that he and his wife had gotten their four children vaccinated. "That’s the best expression I can give you of my opinion," he said. "But I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide."
"It depends on what the vaccine is, what the disease type is and all the rest," he said. "You have to have that balance in considering parental concerns because no parent cares about anything more than they care about protecting their own child’s health."
"Not every vaccine is created equal and not every disease type is as great a public health threat as others," he added.
Christie never responded directly to the question about measles and left unclear which vaccines he was referring to. New Jersey has more stringent vaccination requirements than many other states. It is one of only a handful of states, for example, that require children to get the flu vaccine in order to attend preschools.
In 2009, when Christie first ran for governor, he questioned the flu requirement and also wrote a letter in which he pledged to "stand with" parents who had "expressed their concern over New Jersey’s highest-in-the-nation vaccine mandates."
Democrats quickly accused Christie of siding with those who question the safety of the measles vaccine and contrasted his remarks with those of President Obama, who had answered a question about the issue in an interview over the weekend with NBC's Savannah Guthrie.
"I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations. The science is pretty indisputable. We've looked at this again and again," Obama said.
"There is every reason to get vaccinated. There aren't reasons to not get vaccinated," he added. "You should get your kids vaccinated."
Christie's aides quickly issued a clarification.
"The governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated," they said in a statement issued by the governor's office. "At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate."
Christie made headlines on public health last October when he ordered a nurse, Kaci Hickox, put into involuntary quarantine for four days after she had returned from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.
After extensive controversy, Christie allowed Hickox to return to her home in Maine. She was later found not to have Ebola.
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