The federal government may try to intervene if states refuse to reconsider laws that allow for exemptions from vaccination requirements and measles cases continue to multiply in the Pacific Northwest.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNN Tuesday that "certain states" may eventually "force the hand of the federal health agencies." Gottlieb's comments come as a measles outbreak worsens nationwide, with many cases concentrated in Washington state. The outbreak is most prevalent in areas highly concentrated with unvaccinated children.

"Some states are engaging in such wide exemptions that they're creating the opportunity for outbreaks on a scale that is going to have national implications," Gottlieb told CNN.

And, in an interview with Axios last week, Gottlieb called it "an avoidable tragedy," adding that "too many states have lax laws."

Ten states have seen some 127 cases of measles in the span of a month and a half this year, prompting state and federal lawmakers to examine states' efforts to curb the spread of the disease.

And the public debate around vaccinations – and at what point the government should, if at all, intervene or declare it a public health emergency – has compounded as a more organized anti-vaccination movement surfaces nationwide.

A study published last year found that a dozen states have reported an increase in the number of kindergarten-age children enrolled in schools with nonmedical exemptions since 2009.

Families traditionally seek exemptions for their kids from school vaccination requirements on religious or philosophical grounds, but an increase in unvaccinated children has, in part, been tied to the medically discredited belief that vaccines cause autism spectrum disorder. That theory is often pushed by members of the so-called "anti-vaxx" movement, and others who support anti-vaccination say news coverage of spreading diseases borders on hysteria.

The World Health Organization, however, named the anti-vaccine movement as one of the top global health threats facing the globe this year.

