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SEARCH VACCINATION RECORDS BELOWAn ABC15-Scripps Howard News Service investigation reveals more than 135,000 kindergarten students nationwide are attending school without being vaccinated for potentially deadly diseases like measles, mumps and rubella.
“That is very concerning because it’s exactly in that population that measles can spread so quickly and cause such severe disease,” said Dr. Karen Lewis with the Arizona Department of HealthMedical Services.
Arizona allows parents to opt out from vaccination requirements and send their children to school without them based on personal beliefs.
A 2003 study rates Arizona’s exemption policy among the easiest in the country.
Statewide, the number of students taking the vaccine exemption is only two percent.
However, a review of records reveals that number skyrockets to nine percent in Yavapai County, ten percent in Coconino County, and 25 percent in Greenlee County.
“That puts the children and the community at higher risk for diseases spreading,” Dr. Lewis said.
Earlier this year, a measles outbreak hit Tucson.
The potentially deadly disease infected a tourist from Switzerland.
Over a four-month period, 18 residents tested positive for measles.
“February to May we were just overloaded here in the health department, trying to help get that disease under control, and almost all the people who did come down with the disease had never been immunized,” Dr. Lewis said.
But pro-exemption parents like Melissa VanHook say vaccines like the MMR - or measles, mumps, rubella - that are designed to prevent the spread of disease may be doing more harm than good.
“Within one week of receiving his MMR, he had 105 (degree) fever and within a couple of days from that he would no longer make eye contact,” VanHook said of her 3-year-old son Dane.
Six weeks later, Dane was diagnosed with autism.
“There is no question at all that my child became completely different and the only thing that is different is that we had done the MMR vaccination,” said VanHook.
It’s a concern of some parents nationwide, vaccines designed to prevent disease allegedly causing severe medical disorders like autism.
“Unfortunately that’s the claim out there and it’s frightening parents,” Dr. Lewis said.
Lewis said there is absolutely no medical evidence linking autism to vaccines.
But parents like VanHook point to several successful lawsuits where families have received large financial settlements against companies that manufacture vaccines.
Health officials say that’s the result of sympathetic juries.
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