Vaccine opt-out rate for Louisiana children skyrockets. Herd immunity at risk, experts say.
Parents opted out of vaccines for Louisiana’s kindergartners at the highest rate in at least a decade as several new bills to weaken vaccine requirements continue to advance in the Parents in Louisiana have opted out of vaccines for kindergartners at the highest rate in at least a decade, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the 2022-23 school year, about 2.3% of children entering school requested exemptions, with about 0.1% of those due to medical reasons. This is a significant increase, which can raise the risk of outbreaks of preventable diseases. Experts predict that the number of childhood exemptions will continue to rise, threatening what they see as the nation's primary defense against infectious disease. Several bills have been filed in the Louisiana Legislature to weaken vaccine requirements, including HB47 which requires school communications about vaccine requirements to include information about Louisiana's law for exemptions. Another bill, HB46, would prohibit schools from requiring the COVID-19 vaccine.
gepubliceerd : 2 maanden geleden door Emily Woodruff in Health
Parents opted out of vaccines for Louisiana’s kindergartners at the highest rate in at least a decade as several new bills to weaken vaccine requirements continue to advance in the Louisiana Legislature. During the 2022-23 school year, about 2.3% of children entering school requested exemptions, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 0.1% of those were due to medical reasons. That’s around double the year before, when 1.1% of kindergarten students requested nonmedical exemptions. From 2011 to 2017, the average exemption rate was around 0.75%. A single percentage point increase, which represents a total of 1,155 kids, may sound small. But even slight increases of unvaccinated children in a community can raise the risk of outbreaks of preventable diseases, with vulnerable people suffering most.
“One percent – that is a huge deal,” said Charles Stoecker, a health economist who studies vaccine policy at Tulane University. There is reason to believe the number of childhood exemptions will continue to rise, threatening what health experts see as the nation’s foundational defense against infectious disease. Several bills filed during this year’s legislative session aim to weaken vaccine requirements. “It’s a slippery slope,” said Dr. Mark Kline, physician in chief at Children’s Hospital New Orleans and an infectious disease specialist. “The higher the percentage of school-age children who are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated, the less herd immunity we have.” HB47, which was passed by committee last week and now heads to the House floor, requires any school communications about vaccine requirements to include information about Louisiana’s law for exemptions.
“It's been there for 20 years, and for whatever reason, parents, school staff, people just don't know it,” Edmonston said in the House Education Committee hearing on March 27. Another bill, HB46, would forbid schools from requiring the COVID-19 vaccine. The same committee voted 13-1 in favor of that bill. The Legislature passed nearly identical bills last year, which were vetoed by former Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat. Louisiana is already one of 15 states that allows for “philosophical” exemptions for any reason. Health experts worry that making it easier to opt out may push the state into outbreak territory. For some diseases, a slim margin determines whether viruses can easily spread.
That’s been demonstrated on a national scale with measles, said Kline. Measles is so infectious that public health officials estimate about 95% of people must be vaccinated to prevent outbreaks. Several states are experiencing outbreaks of the disease, which was considered eliminated more than 20 years ago in the U.S. Louisiana had two cases among children in February. Prior to that, the last case in the state was in 2018 in a person who had traveled from Europe. Although the Republican-dominated Legislature is considering a number of vaccine-related bills, including protections for businesses that don’t mandate the COVID-19 vaccine and other emergency-use vaccinations, grassroots organizations said most parents respond positively to vaccine information at community events, according to Jessica Herrick, founder of Louisiana Parents for Vaccines.
“I don't think the voices that are the loudest at the state Capitol are representing the majority of Louisianans," said Herrick, a microbiologist by training. “Even with the slips we’re seeing, still the overwhelming majority of parents vaccinate their kids.” Preventing disease through vaccination comes down to the numbers, said Stoecker, the health economist. Because vaccination has been baked into schooling for so long, the benefits of vaccination are not as apparent as they once were, when children were paralyzed by polio or killed by measles at higher rates. Childhood vaccinations prevent an estimated 4 million deaths yearly, according to the CDC. Those who are most at risk when vaccination rates drop are infants too young to be vaccinated and people with weakened immune systems, for whom vaccination doesn’t work as well.
Onderwerpen: Coronavirus