Forty states saw rises in parents citing religious or other personal concerns for not vaccinating their young children.
The number of kids whose caregivers are opting them out of routine childhood vaccines has reached an all-time high, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday, potentially leaving hundreds of thousands of children unprotected against preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough.
The report did not dive into the reasons for the increase, but experts said the findings clearly reflect Americans’ growing unease about medicine in general.
“There is a rising distrust in the health care system,” said Dr. Amna Husain, a pediatrician in private practice in North Carolina, as well as a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Vaccine exemptions “have unfortunately trended upward with it.”
Vaccines work too well for their own good in some respects. They are so good that most people don’t remember the bad old days when these diseases ran rampant. People think “measles” and say “so you get some sores for a few days and then fully recover, no biggie.” They hear “whooping cough” and say “you just cough for a bit, so what?”
Too many people don’t recall the horrors these diseases inflicted. I count myself among those who don’t recall first hand, but I’ve read enough accounts to be thankful that I haven’t had to experience this.
Also, the anti-vax movement started small. They stopped getting shots and the world didn’t end. This was actually because everyone else was still supplying herd immunity, but they spun it as “see how you don’t need vaccines?”
As more and more people joined, the herd immunity started to falter. Now, it’s breaking down entirely and diseases once thought gone are making a comeback tour.
And all because these people would rather trust someone online with no medical experience, but who tells them what they want to hear rather than actual doctors.
When I was in highschool there was a girl in my class whose religion forbade basically all medicine and she had a really bad case of whooping cough.
It was awful, I remember feeling really terrible for her she sounded like she was in a lot of pain and discomfort every day. No kids should be forced to go through that