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Parents Refusing to Vaccinate at Dangerously High Levels at Five

Parents Refusing to Vaccinate at Dangerously High Levels at Five

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by: Mike Devlin Active Indicator LED Icon  OP  New Member
~ 9 years ago   Sep 10, '14 8:30am  
From SCVTalk:https://www.santaclarita.com/blog/view.php?blog_entry_id=31275Last year, five elementary schools in the SCV reported what experts consider dangerously high rates of parents opting out of vaccines, according to a report last week by the LA Times. Here's a snapshot of the SCV – orange is bad (no herd immunity), dark grey is OK, and light grey is higher than the state average, but below the point where herd immunity is lost (full interactive map and list here).Schools require students to get certain vaccinations, but parents can claim exemptions based on personal beliefs. These exemptions have doubled in the last six years to a statewide average of 2.9% for public schools and 5.7% for private schools. The spike is thought to be driven by widely-refuted concern that early childhood vaccines cause Autism.According to the LA Times, herd immunity for measles and whooping cough is threatened when over 8% of parents refuse to vaccinate their kids. Five SCV schools fall below the herd immunity threshold for these diseases: three in the Sulphur Springs district, one in the Saugus district and one Hart-chartered school. SchoolDistrictExemption RateValley ViewSulphur Springs17.3%CedarcreekSaugus16.5%PinetreeSulphur Springs15.2%Canyon SpringsSulphur Springs12.3%SCViHart (Charter)12.0%The figures for these schools are pretty alarming, and they don't even take into account the percentage of kindergartners who aren't up-to-date on their vaccines. Declining vaccination rates have been blamed for recent outbreaks of measles and whooping cough.Apart from the obvious risk to their own children, the decline in vaccinations it threatens the "herd immunity." The herd immunity is when nearly everyone in a group is vaccinated, and it prevents outbreaks from occuring. Without it, there is a much higher risk of infection for unvaccinated schoolchildren, younger children, the elderly and anyone with compromised immune systems. This video explains it really well.xx
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timothymyers02 Active Indicator LED Icon  New Member
~ 9 years ago   Sep 10, '14 9:54am  
The Myers Clan is so PRO-vaccine that we had our youngest SON take the gardisal vaccination!
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Vicki Active Indicator LED Icon  New Member
~ 9 years ago   Sep 10, '14 10:20am  
I would be interested in knowing if these numbers are differentiated between the medical waivers and the personal belief waivers, or if they are all just lumped together. Also, I wonder if the numbers take into consideration all the kids who started getting all their vaccines, then had negative reactions, so then stopped getting them and used the waivers when registering for school. If all we have is the data on the number of waivers, we don't know what led to the waiver. To assume that all of these families have waived vaccines from birth might be inaccurate, and, therefore, exaggerated. For example, in our family, we vaccinated our kids for the first few years as required, but when they each had bad reactions, we stopped. One has a medical waiver based on the contraindications on the product insert (ie, a past bad reaction means the doctor shouldn't give the booster), and one has a personal belief waiver on file (but would qualify for a medical waiver if we needed one). Interestingly, when we registered the child with the medical waiver for school, they made me sign the personal belief waiver anyway. I think these waiver numbers don't tell the whole story.
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Mike Active Indicator LED Icon  OP  New Member
~ 9 years ago   Sep 10, '14 10:22am  
I don't have the link, but I read a study a couple of years ago that actually found the SCVTalk model was the best for open discussion: not fully anonymous, but where people used the same name consistently - real names or not. Some people use quasi-anonymity to attack, but others have different reasons, and they wouldn't participate otherwise.
 
But of course, it is more civil on facebook, which I like. It's also less interesting, which is too bad. It involves more people in the conversation, but I also feel that I learn less from the conversation. A few years back, the comments here were often "the best part," but I never took that as a put-down (and I don't think anyone else did, either)
 
For what it's worth, our readership is up, and the bigger stories spike like we wouldn't have imagined a few years ago.
 
But oh man, I used to be so tough on you in those comment threads, TimBen. I've come around, quite a bit Emoticon
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Mike Active Indicator LED Icon  OP  New Member
~ 9 years ago   Sep 10, '14 10:27am  
According to the article, the figures are strictly the personal belief exemption, and it mentions that medical exemptions exist as well. There's also the issue of children not being up to date, which is an issue in poor communities. They only survey Kindergarten and 7th grade, but I wonder if the up-to-date figure (*shockingly* low at some schools) is a persistent problem in 1st grade, 2nd grade, etc.
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Vicki Active Indicator LED Icon  New Member
~ 9 years ago   Sep 10, '14 11:00am  
I was under the impression that, in order to start K, you either HAD to be up-to-date, or you had to have a waiver. Can a child go to school anyway, without up-to-date vaccines and without a waiver?
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