Anti-vaxxers on the Rise as More Americans Refuse to Vaccinate Kindergarten Kids, Says CDC

By Rick Martin Jan 12 2023, 22:37 PM EST

Fewer Americans have been vaccinating their kids from measles and polio for the second straight year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, especially kindergarteners. This may be attributed to the rise of the anti-vaxxer movement.

For the measles vaccine, around 94% to 95% of kindergarteners receive their shots, but for the 2020-2021 school year, it has dropped to below 94%. The government agency released a study last Thursday, and it found that rates have dropped again for the 2021-2022 school year, to about 93%.

The CDC is now launching a campaign to try and bring the vaccination numbers up, per Fortune Magazine.

Confidence in Vaccines Dropping, Says CDC

The COVID-19 pandemic may have been one of the biggest factors in the drop in vaccinations, as it did not just disrupt routine health care for children but also made it hard for school administrators and nurses to track if children were up-to-date with their vaccinations.

The CDC also admitted that confidence in vaccines has dropped recently, and this may have led to fewer parents vaccinating their kindergarten children, according to ABC News.

For this new campaign, CDC will focus on children in kindergarten. Health officials say that this is when most children enter school systems. It was reported that public schools in the United States usually require kids to get vaccinated to attend classes. However, some exceptions are still allowed, and this slightly increased last year.

CDC's Shannon Stokley pointed out that while exceptions went up last year, it was not the main driving factor for the decrease in vaccinations. The CDC official stated that it was more because of schools relaxing their vaccination policies. This was put in place to "allow enrollment while giving families a grace period to get shots."

However, the agency still warns that falling vaccination rates may lead to outbreaks of diseases that were once thought to be completely eradicated, such as polio. With the new numbers released by the CDC, it is suggested that as many as 275,000 kindergarten students lack the vaccine protection to ward off these illnesses.

Anti-vaxxer Sentiment Rose Due to COVID-19 Vaccine Skepticism

The anti-vaxxer movement in the United States already existed before the pandemic, but it went into overdrive as it fueled skepticism against the COVID-19 vaccine, and this has many doctors worried. Anti-vaxxer celebrities like NBA star Kyrie Irving and vaccine misinformation on TikTok do not help either.

Vaccine hesitancy around COVID was already "creeping into" the sentiment on other vaccines, physician and director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Liam Smeeth told CNBC.

"I'm concerned it's making people think: 'oh, well, maybe the measles vaccine isn't great either, and maybe these other vaccines aren't great," he added.

The doctor also noted that disease outbreaks usually occurred when vaccination rates dropped. He gave outbreaks that happened in Britain during the 1990s and early 2000s when autism was linked to vaccines, especially in the 1990s. He said that these claims managed to turn tens of thousands of parents against vaccines and thus caused an outbreak of disease.

Studies have proven that vaccines do not cause Autism Spectrum Disorder, with a journal that released an article linking vaccines to autism retracting an article they made.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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