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Question: Are your children vaccinated?

Clusters Of Unvaccinated Kids Could Set The Stage For Outbreak

More and more parents are refusing to vaccinate their children. And according to a new study, they could be creating the perfect conditions for an outbreak of disease.

California kids have to be vaccinated before they enter kindergarten
— unless their parents file a personal belief exemption (PBE) arguing
that the shots violate their principles. As more and more parents grow
suspicious of vaccines, the number of these PBEs is growing. And now
researchers have found that families who get PBEs for their kids tend to
cluster together, making outbreaks of diseases like measles, whooping
cough, and mumps even more likely.

The percentage of students getting PBEs tripled between 1996 and 2007, from 0.5% to 1.5%. In a study published in the American Journal of Public Health,
nursing professor Alison Buttenheim and her coauthors found that by
2010, it had risen to 2.3%. What's more, kids with the exemptions tend
to live near each other, because parents often share beliefs about
vaccines with their neighbors. That means some schools have much higher
exemption rates than the state as a whole. And the number of those
schools is growing.

In 2008, California had 1,937 schools where
more than 20 kindergartners had a PBE. By 2010, that number had risen to
3,675. Enrollment at high-PBE schools also increased. In 2010, 1.4% of
California kindergartners went to schools where 20% or more of their
classmates had PBEs.

In order to be protected from a disease,
Buttenheim and her coauthors write, a population needs to be 80% to 95%
vaccinated (the exact percentage depends on the disease). As a whole,
the California school system is close to that standard, with
kindergarten vaccination rates
for all vaccine-required diseases above 93%. But high-PBE schools may
be dipping well below that, putting them at risk of an outbreak.

The
study authors note that just such an outbreak occurred in 2008, when a
child whose parents had chosen to forgo vaccines got measles in Europe.
Eleven percent of the students at the child's San Diego school had PBEs
that exempted them from the measles vaccine, and two more students got
sick. As the number of high-PBE schools increases, this scenario could
become more common.

Outbreaks like this aren't just a California problem. In 2008, a measles outbreak sickened
at least 14, including an unvaccinated 2-year-old boy who had to be
hospitalized for seizures. Thirteen people who contracted measles in an
Indiana outbreak after this year's Super Bowl said they'd previously refused the vaccine. And much of the country is currently in the midst of a whooping cough epidemic, which officials say could be the worst in 50 years — only 85% of children and adults who are supposed to be vaccinated for it actually are.

The
growth of high-PBE schools increases the likelihood of an outbreak even
if the percentage of unvaccinated kids in the country as a whole
remains low. And high-PBE schools could start to have even more
exemptions as parents see that their peers are eschewing vaccines and
start to follow suit. The study authors stop short of advocating that
the state force parents to vaccinate their kids. But they do call for
better public education about vaccines so that parents don't buy into misinformation about vaccines and put their kids — and others — at risk.

My son is two months late on his one year vaccines. His doctor didn't have them in on his 12 month appointment and they were only supposed to be a few weeks. After 3 weeks still didn't have them in. The doctor said it should be ok since he isn't in daycare but after 3 weeks I called the health department couldn't get in till next week. So no he isn't but we are very much pro vaccine and believe in doing the recommended CDC schedule. I feel scared and bad for the delay in the schedule and will feel much better once he has them.

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