More parents are getting exemptions for their kids so they don't have to get vaccinated for kindergarten, and fewer kids are getting their shots. That's according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This comes as the Trump administration is trying to reduce the number of vaccinations children get, and childhood diseases like measles are resurging.
Parents are opting out of getting their children routine vaccinations before kindergarten in record numbers, and the rates at which kids are getting their shots continues to decline. That is according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has the story.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: More than 4% of parents of kids starting kindergarten last year got exemptions for routine vaccinations because of their family's personal or religious beliefs. That's the biggest jump in exemptions in more than a decade and means that the share of kids getting exemptions hit another all-time high. More than 155,000 kindergarten students got exemptions from getting routine vaccinations.
That's deepening alarm among public health and infectious disease experts. Paul Offit is a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of Pennsylvania. PAUL OFFIT: The most recent CDC numbers are disappointing because they represent a continued trend by parents who are choosing not to vaccinate their children.
We're, once again, in the United States of America, experiencing children die of vaccine preventable disease who don't need to die from these diseases. STEIN: That's because the same CDC report shows that while overall vaccination rates remain high, they are continuing to fall at a steady pace. Vaccinations inch down again in more than half of states for all major vaccines recommended for kindergarten, including for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and even polio.
More than 280,000 kids started kindergarten unprotected against measles, mumps and rubella alone. Offit says that's disturbing. OFFIT: This continued trend against vaccinating children is having an obvious effect.
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