Increasing Vaccination Rates Without Eliminating Nonmedical Exemptions

Measles is making a comeback in the United States. Despite the overall success of vaccination programs, local outbreaks of this painful and potentially deadly disease are now frustratingly routine. And measles is not alone; outbreaks of other vaccine-preventable diseases have also been on the rise. The culprit behind these outbreaks is the decision by an increasing number of parents to opt their children out of state law vaccination requirements by claiming religious or philosophical exemptions. Once immunization levels in a particular community dip below a critical threshold necessary to establish what public health experts call herd immunity, contagion can take hold. What makes this loss of heard immunity worse is that children whose parents voluntarily refuse vaccination are not the only ones at risk. The absence of herd immunity also threatens those who cannot be vaccinated due to age or medical condition, or whose vaccine-induced immunity has waned or never fully…

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