TAMPA, Fla. — Over the past few years, health officials have been monitoring a steady decrease in childhood vaccines.
“I am a practicing pediatrician and I’ve seen it firsthand over the last few decades that I’ve practiced,” said Dr. Christina Canody, BayCare Kids Medical Director.
A recent report from the CDC showed vaccinations among kindergarteners were less than 93% in the 2023-2024 school year, down from 95% in the 2019-2020 school year.
There was an understandable disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, but experts said it hasn’t really gotten better. There’s also been a recent decline in vaccinations and well-visit exams locally because of our active hurricane season.
“It’s important for families to try to get back in as soon as possible to get back on schedule because vaccines are given at specific times to make sure that they get immunity towards these diseases and they’re given in staggered dates and different times that are specific to building the highest levels of immunity,” said Canody.
Experts believe this downward trend is concerning because it could impact herd immunity for diseases that we haven’t seen much in decades.
“The risk is an increase in these diseases, and then the effects are truly felt by the children who develop these illnesses. In 2024 alone, in the first 8 months of this year, we saw over 215 cases of measles in the United States. That is more cases of measles than we saw in 2020 through 2023, all years combined,” said Canody.
Health officials think there are several reasons behind this drop— one big one being the uptick in vaccine hesitancy stemming from COVID-19 vaccinations.
“I also think memory is short. We’ve had fairly high vaccination rates for many years in the country. And so we’ve seen many of these potentially life-threatening diseases go down. So a lot of people have never seen a case of the measles,” said Canody.
Another reason behind the drop is the increase in misinformation online about vaccine safety.
“Are vaccines safe? They are relatively safe. Is there somebody that can have a reaction? Absolutely. You can have a reaction to a food, you can have a reaction to a vaccine, you can have a reaction to any medication. Those rates have been well studied and we can give you the relative risk or what happens with that," said Canody.
“Those rare side effects are concerning, but in general, for most people, that is not the experience. The experience is it’s very well tolerated, it’s highly protective," she added.
Experts urge parents to talk directly with their doctor if they have any concerns.
“Talk to your pediatrician. Talk about the relative benefits and risks for each child, knowing that there can be special circumstances. But also be open to the information that you can protect your child and protect those around your child as well," said Canody.
“One of the things that I urge parents the most is to seek areas of truth. Vaccines were not invented in this country or within the world to cause problems. They were really invented to address potential serious and life-threatening illnesses. For the first time, we are seeing our overall life expectancy decrease in the United States. But I can tell you those life expectancies started to increase with the advent of vaccinations. So when vaccinations were brought into the public health system, that’s when we started to see vaccination rates increase, kids live longer, and survive some of these life-threatening childhood illnesses," she added.
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