JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
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. Dr. 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. This is a big problem. 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. We've had more measles cases over the past year and a half than we've had in more than 30 years. We had two healthy little girls, 6 and 8-year-old girls in West Texas, die from measles. That's the first child death in more than 20 years. We've had 28,000 cases of whooping cough over the past year, with 16 deaths. It's just unconscionable.
STEIN: And he says there's no reason to think these trends will reverse anytime soon. The pandemic caused lots of kids to miss shots and deepen suspicion about vaccines. And there's been a steady drumbeat of misinformation and hostility towards vaccines from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top Trump administration health officials, deepening doubt and confusion about vaccines. Dr. Jake Scott is an infectious disease doctor at Stanford University.
JAKE SCOTT: Trust in vaccines has clearly been eroding since the COVID pandemic, and for the first time, that skepticism is also coming from the top of our federal health agencies rather than being countered by them. At the same time, several states have actually made exemptions easier to get. So that, I think, is just a perfect storm for these sorts of outbreaks.
STEIN: In fact, just last week, as many kids were returning to school, President Trump held a high-profile event in the Oval Office, where he blamed autism on vaccines and signed a new executive order calling for children to get fewer vaccinations. He also ordered the Justice Department to pressure states to make it easier for parents to opt out of school vaccinations.
Many public health experts were hoping that the new CDC director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, would help counter these anti-vaccine messages. But Schwartz has been silent on the president's calls. The CDC released the new data with just a three-sentence email. In previous years, federal officials would issue a detailed scientific report, often along with a public call for more parents to vaccinate their kids. But no federal official, including Dr. Schwartz, said anything to try to boost childhood vaccinations. NPR requested comment from the administration and an interview with Dr. Schwartz but got no response.
Rob Stein, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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