We’re not quite done with spooky stuff, apparently. As sniffles and snuffles from various viruses take hold, KUOW is reporting on the number of unvaccinated school children in the city:
According to state data obtained by KUOW, many people in this well-educated, wealthier part of the city omit some vaccines and introduce others more slowly than health officials recommend.
It’s a trend reflected nationwide, said Paul Throne of the state Office of Immunization and Child Profile.
“They have confidence interpreting data for themselves,” Throne said of these higher income, better educated parents. “A physician’s recommendation may carry no greater weight than their friend’s recommendation.”
In 2012-2013, about 58% of Seattle schools had an opt-out rate higher than the state’s average of 4.6%, KUOW reports. One of Capitol Hill’s two public elementary schools came in at a whopping 7.9% opt-out rate.
Here are the numbers for the 12/13 Capitol Hill kindergartners:
Source: KUOW
From the KUOW dataset, 26.3% of the kindergartners at 18th Ave E’s Stevens were either under-vaccinated or listed as opted out according to the state. Lowell numbers are less extreme. KUOW also reports that the numbers don’t get much better for the area’s private schools with Bright Water School, Bertschi School, and the Seattle Hebrew Academy all weighing in among the city’s “top 5” for highest opt-out rates in the city.
I guess this is the result when you get your medical advice from a former Playboy bunny.
They should open a branch of the Los Feliz Daycare up here.
Thank you Dr. Jenny McCarthy for this.
I feel bad for those kids that didn’t get inoculated. Too bad there isn’t a vaccine against stupid for their parents.
I can’t believe these comments. It is up to the parents of the child to determine whether or not they consider various vaccines safe for their kids and I, for one, am impressed that so many people are being careful. Do a bit more research on vaccines people. The drug companies in this country are some of the most incredibly greedy businesses going and the FDA’s standards leave a lot to be desired. Furthermore, there is quite a bit of contention even with the Bill Gates Foundation and the lawsuit for the numerous deaths in India. I simply cannot believe how judgmental you are.
Back atcha, Judgie.
It shouldn’t be up to the parents, unless they’re medical professionals.
Actually public health campaigns are typically mandatory with the exception of contraindication and religious exemptions. The fact that one is paranoid and has a complete lack of understanding of basic scientific and medical principles should not exempt you. I think YOU need to do a bit more reading from sources other than Natural News and all the similar iterations (by the way, RESEARCH is what researchers do. Reading stuff on the net is reading, not research). And there isn’t any contention in India at all with the Gates Foundation. That is a nonsense story made up by a bunch of conspiracy theorist nut jobs over at Natural News. I hope they get sued over that lie, too. You will not find it confirmed anywhere but on other conspiracy theory sites.
Vaccines have been around for about 100 years and have contributed as much to improving health as has the victorian toilet. Millions of doctors and scientists across the globe, in various fields study affirm the use of vaccines. This is not a debate in any of those fields, it is settled science and consensus. If you are suggesting that “big pharma” somehow has all of these doctors and scientists across the globe either bamboozled are are part of the conspiracy then you need to develop some critical thinking skills.
@wow, there is no judgement in herd immunity.
Marvelous. Why don’t you tell that to the 47,500 cases of NPAFP [non-polio acute flaccid paralysis] which is clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly (the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received) or the 10,000 other vaccine-related deaths for everything from meningitis to HPV given to CHILDREN in India by the BMGF/PATH/GAVI organizations who are now being sued in that country? I’m certain they will appreciate your “nonjudgmental herd immunity” opinion.
10,000 deaths ? really ? Evidence please…
http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccine-denialists-hate-bill-gates/
What fuels this level of paranoia? Vaccines have done countless good (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/24/cdc-vaccine-benefits/8094789/). Even if you believed every crackpot naturalnews.com article, they’d still be worth it based on the saved lives alone.
Feel free to not vaccinate your kid, but then homeschool him/her. The rest of us shouldn’t be exposed to what he/she may become infected with.
If you’re afraid of the oral polio vaccine, there is now, back in fashion, the shot.
HPV is given to children in the USA also (age 12). Death in India rate vs. deaths in the USA rate. What might you think is the difference between what’s going on in each of those 2 countries?
Parents who don’t vaccinate their kids are just plain selfish, not to mention misinformed. They know that their kids will be fairly well-protected because of “herd immunity,” and they don’t care if they are raising risk for the general community.
They are also incredibly callous towards their own children. Childhood diseases like measles encephalitis are devastating, and are entirely preventable via vaccination.
The joke in the long run is on the parents. Either the kids get debilitating diseases like polio because they are not vaccinated in time or they discover at places like Stevens that the herd immunity they are relying upon breaks down when the vaccination rate falls below 90%. Unfortunately, the rest of us in the community will have to suffer and deal with the ramifications of their choices.
One thing I am unclear about is the noncompliance rate. If certain vaccinations are required and the children are noncompliant they should not be permitted in school. I may not be a fan of parents slow playing the vaccination of their kids, but it is a choice they are permitted to make and there can be good reasons to do so. But slow play is a far cry from completely skipping.
[…] With numbers for all grades shaking out with surprisingly high opt out rates, there are signs that things won’t be improving on the vaccination front anytime soon. In November, CHS reported on the “out of compliance” rates found in Capitol Hill’s public kindergartens. […]