Dr. Anthony Fauci: It's a "shame" parents aren't vaccinating children

As the measles outbreak continues to spread across Western states, a leading health official is calling parents out.

"It really is a shame that children are not allowed to get vaccinated by their parents," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday on "CBS This Morning." "That is really too bad."

It's troubling for a number of reasons, he said.

"First of all, the measles vaccine is one of the most highly effective vaccines that we have against any virus or any microbe, and it is safe, number one. Number two, measles is one of the top two most contagious infectious viruses that we know of," Fauci said. "So you have a highly infectious virus and you have an extraordinarily effective vaccine."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine is 97 percent effective.