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posted by chromas on Friday October 12 2018, @04:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the vax>x86 dept.

A small but increasing number of children in the United States are not getting some or all of their recommended vaccinations. The percentage of children under 2 years old who haven't received any vaccinations has quadrupled in the last 17 years, according to federal health data released Thursday.

Overall, immunization rates remain high and haven't changed much at the national level. But a pair of reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about immunizations for preschoolers and kindergartners highlights a growing concern among health officials and clinicians about children who aren't getting the necessary protection against vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, whooping cough and other pediatric infectious diseases.

The vast majority of parents across the country vaccinate their children and follow recommended schedules for this basic preventive practice. But the recent upswing in vaccine skepticism and outright refusal to vaccinate has spawned communities of undervaccinated children who are more susceptible to disease and pose health risks to the broader public.

[...] The data underlying the latest reports do not explain the reason for the increase in unvaccinated children. In some cases, parents hesitate or refuse to immunize, officials and experts said. Insurance coverage and an urban-rural disparity are likely other reasons for the troubling rise.

Among children aged 19 months to 35 months in rural areas, about 2 percent received no vaccinations in 2017. That is double the number of unvaccinated children living in urban areas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/percentage-of-young-us-children-who-dont-receive-any-vaccines-has-quadrupled-since-2001/2018/10/11/4a9cca98-cd0d-11e8-920f-dd52e1ae4570_story.html?utm_term=.3db2620fea5d


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @03:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @03:33PM (#747934)

    And lets not forget measles, where 99% of what would have previously been diagnosed as measles are now diagnosed as something else:

    Indeed, an average of only 100 cases of measles are confirmed annually [32], despite the fact that >20,000 tests are conducted [28], directly suggesting the low predictive value of clinical suspicion alone.

    Walter A. Orenstein, Rafael Harpaz; Completeness of Measles Case Reporting: Review of Estimates for the United States, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 189, Issue Supplement_1, 1 May 2004, Pages S185–S190, https://doi.org/10.1086/378501 [doi.org]