Opposition to vaccines against public health increases in the United States

July 10, 2018

HealthDay News – The opposition to public health vaccines has developed in recent years in the United States and caused measles outbreaks, according to a political forum article published online June 12 in PLOS Medicine .

Jacqueline K. Olive, of Houston's Baylor College of Medicine, and her colleagues discuss the state of the anti-vaccine movement in the United States.

It should be noted that in recent years, a social movement of opposition to vaccines against public health has developed in the United States, with an increase in measles outbreaks. The number of non-medical exemptions from "philosophical beliefs" has increased since 2009 in 12 of the 18 states that currently allow this policy. Several US metropolitan areas "hotspot" have a very large number of NMEs, including Seattle, Spokane (Washington) and Portland (Oregon), in the northwest. In the badysis of the correlation between NME rates and actual vaccination coverage, there was an inverse badociation between NME and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) immunization coverage in children kindergarten.

"Our results indicate that new outbreaks of anti-vaccine activities are being established in major metropolitan areas, making some cities vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases," write the authors. "As recent experience in Anaheim, California has shown, low vaccination rates have caused a measles outbreak, while the closure of the NMEs has resulted in an increase in MMR coverage." [19659004] Abstract / Full Text

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