In the story
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, the German town of Hamelin suffers from an infestation of rats. When things are looking bleak, along comes a piper dressed in bright colored clothes. He claims that he can rid the town of the rats. The mayor makes a deal, promising to pay a handsome sum of money if the piper should accomplish this feat. At once, the piper sets to the task, playing his magic flute. The rats begin streaming out of the houses and shops, following the piper to the nearby Weser River, where all of the rodents drown. Having held up his end of the deal, the piper goes to collect his due, but the mayor shirks his responsibility. He reneges on the deal and refuses to pay the piper the agreed upon sum. Angry, the piper leaves, vowing to have his revenge. He returns later and once more plays his magic flute. This time, all of the children of the village flood the streets to follow the piper out of the village, never to return.
The story inspired a lovely phrase, "
pay the piper", to describe those situations where one must accept the unpleasant or undesired consequences of one's actions. It's a phrase that is particularly appropriate when talking about the anti-vaccine movement, their enablers and the current, and distressing, measles outbreak originating at Disneyland. For years and years, anti-vaccine activists and the handful of physicians who eschew their professional obligations in order to pander to them have downplayed the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, exaggerated the risks of the vaccines, and done their damnedest to bring down vaccination rates across the country. The natural consequence of this is that we are seeing the return of diseases that we eliminated from endemic circulation.
