Ben Carson Suggests Link Between Immigration and Measles Outbreak

Conservative darling Ben Carson has offered his input on the current vaccination debate, suggesting that the outbreak of measles and other communicable diseases is due in part to people emigrating into the U.S. from other countries.

In a recent interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo, Carson, a prospective presidential candidate for 2016, suggested that it's important that all people living in the U.S. have the same vaccination requires, whether a citizen was born here or not.

Carson and Cuomo were discussing the recent measles outbreak that has had over 100 cases in 14 states.

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, suggested the recent measles outbreak is due to "a combination of noncompliance [with vaccine requirements] and introduction into our society of people who perhaps haven't been well screened."

The potential presidential candidate added that he's not trying to speak in code, but rather state the facts.

"It's not code, and I'm not trying to make it into any particular argument. I'm stating what the facts are," he said. "The facts are that there are people in our country who have become lax in terms of their vigilance, getting their kids immunized, and we have people coming in who are not necessarily being properly screened. That's not making it an issue, it's stating facts."

"Let me put it this way, if I found you somebody who came in from another country who had not been vaccinated and caused a problem, would that convince you?" Carson replied, before adding, "No."

"It's not to prejudice anybody, but we have to deal with reality, and if you have people coming into your country who have not been properly screened, who have not had the same kind of care as people in this country, I don't think you have to be a genius to figure out that that could introduce some communicable problems," Carson added.