Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.The greatest spreader of vaccine misinformation is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Lauren Weber, Caitlin Gilbert, Dylan Moriarty and Joshua Lott at WP:
The share of U.S. counties where 95 percent or more of kindergartners were vaccinated against measles — the number doctors say is needed to achieve overall protection for the class, known as “herd immunity” — has dropped from 50 percent before the pandemic to 28 percent, according to The Post’s examination of the public records from 44 states and the District of Columbia.
Most of the counties that previously lacked herd immunity for kindergarten classrooms got worse, according to the Post analysis, which in most cases compared the academic years 2018-2019 and 2024-2025.
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Data collection efforts by states are uneven. Public health authorities in some places are flying blind, without adequate data to guide policy decisions, The Post found, because vaccination records have not been uniformly collected. Many school districts are unable to keep track of which kids have received shots.
In Kentucky, state data shows that the measles vaccine rate in Jefferson County, which includes Louisville, was below 60 percent for kindergartners.
Data collection efforts by states are uneven. Public health authorities in some places are flying blind, without adequate data to guide policy decisions, The Post found, because vaccination records have not been uniformly collected. Many school districts are unable to keep track of which kids have received shots.
In Kentucky, state data shows that the measles vaccine rate in Jefferson County, which includes Louisville, was below 60 percent for kindergartners.
“It leaves parents very confused about who they should trust and what information they should rely on,” she said. “And ultimately, often families are choosing not to vaccinate because that feels safer, or it’s easier to not do something out of fear than it is to choose to make a decision.”
The federal vaccine advisory committee Kennedy remade with his appointments voted in December to eliminate a long-standing recommendation for every newborn to receive a hepatitis B shot, which the CDC approved. And more changes could be ahead for the vaccine schedule.
The number of parents questioning vaccine safety in Anita Chandra-Puri’s Chicago pediatric practice has doubled in the last few years, she said. Many of them are highly educated, but they keep coming across misleading information on social media, she said.
Across schools in Chicago, the measles vaccination rate has dropped 6 percent on average since the pandemic.
“They have access to every resource, and they think that they can become the expert at something because they’ve seen it multiple times” on social media, Chandra-Puri said.
