MINOT — Two things make this column topical.
The first is that anti-vaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has made a career out of the privileges extended to him by the achievements of his wealthy and influential family, has ended his campaign for the presidency. He’s endorsed the candidacy of disgraced former President Donald Trump, another conspiracy-addled crank who has also made a career out of the privileges afforded him by the riches of power of his famous family.
It takes one to know one, I suppose.
The other is that it’s back-to-school time, so we’re getting updated data on vaccination rates. The numbers are not good news for those of us who get vaccine advice from doctors and not politicians, social media influencers or
chiropractors
who, for some inexplicable reason, are allowed to call themselves doctors.
According to data collected by the North Dakota Department of Health, the kindergarten-age vaccination rate for chicken pox has declined 3.76% since the 2019-2020 school year (which coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic). The rate for the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine is down 3.72%, polio vaccines are down 3.54%, hepatitis B vaccines are down 2.27%, and the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis is down 3.91%.
These are all vaccinations “required” by state law (I’ll explain the scare quotes around required in a moment). You can view all the data for yourself
on the Department of Health’s immunization dashboard.
I track the kindergarten rates because they’re the most consequential. Parents who vaccinate their children at the kindergarten age are likely to continue throughout their child’s school career.
And the rates are declining because these vaccinations are only nominally required. State law allows for three types of exemptions, two of which amount to the same thing. Parents can opt out of shots for their children for medical reasons, as well as religious or personal reasons. The latter exemption is just a matter of checking a box on a form.
Medical exemptions are steady, as you’d expect, but the numbers of personal and religious exemptions for kindergarten students are soaring in North Dakota, having risen nearly 69% since the 2019-2020 school year.
To be sure, vaccine opponents are still in the minority. After all, roughly 94% of kindergartners are still getting all of the required and recommended vaccinations. But then again, the minority of people opting out of vaccines doesn’t need to be very large to have a deleterious impact on overall public health.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly impacted public attitudes about vaccinations. The COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, but given their newness and how rapidly they were developed, a certain level of skepticism is understandable.
This data has nothing to do with the COVID-19 vaccines.
We’re talking about the polio vaccine, a miracle of medical science that has protected generations of Americans from a terrible, debilitating illness since 1955. The MMR vaccine has been around since 1971, hepatitis B since 1981, and both the chicken pox and DTAP shots have been available since the 1990s.
This trend toward vaccine skepticism isn’t rooted in some new facts we’ve learned about these shots. It’s rooted in paranoia and mistrust born of the internet and elevated by unscrupulous celebrities, fanatical religious leaders, and opportunistic politicians.
Vaccination coverage rates are falling, and exemptions are up, because increasingly, North Dakotans are getting their advice from Facebook instead of qualified medical professionals.
Eventually, the tide will turn because the efficacy of vaccinations is rooted in immutable truths, not ideological and theological argle-bargle. But in the here and now? North Dakota’s children are at greater risk of serious illness than they might have been, and that’s unacceptable.
Rob Port is a news reporter, columnist, and podcast host for the Forum News Service with an extensive background in investigations and public records. He covers politics and government in North Dakota and the upper Midwest. Reach him at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to his Plain Talk podcast.
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Publish date : 2024-08-26 07:11:00
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