Calif: Coachella Valley vaccination rates at ‘historically low' levels

[Guest guest]

" 135,000 children (of about 4 million new

students) started kindergarten last fall exempt from vaccine requirements. "

" In Riverside County, about 70 percent of

children under age 2 are vaccinated, a number the

health department is looking to increase through

education, incentive program and access to low

cost or free immunizations, Cole said.'

" A Scripps News Service poll found that 56

percent of Americans think parents should be able

to exempt their children from vaccinations for “philosophical reasons.” "

Its a start - but too many are being injured still.

Sheri

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http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080915/NEWS01/809150314/-1/\

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Staff and wire reports • September 15, 2008

Hundreds of thousands of children are going to

school this fall without protection from deadly diseases.

More parents are deciding not to vaccinate their

children against mumps, measles, rubella, polio

and other dangerous diseases. The parents refuse

to vaccinate because of concerns that the

vaccinations are harmful, or because of the

growing cost and complexity of getting the shots.

A Scripps News Service review of

incomplete surveys submitted to the federal

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows

at least 135,000 children (of about 4 million new

students) started kindergarten last fall exempt from vaccine requirements.

In some states, one in 10 children did not get

vaccinated, and in some communities, 30 percent

of the children were unprotected.

The amount of students who receive exemptions

from the required vaccinations is too small to

create an issue for Coachella Valley schools, officials here said.

At Desert Sands Unified School District, more

than 99.5 percent of students receive all

immunizations ­ a number that has not decreased,

said Elka -, director of student

support services and special education.

Sixteen students in the Coachella Valley Unified

School District were exempt from vaccine for

personal beliefs this school year, said

Fisher, director of pupil services / special

education. That number also has not changed

significantly over the past three years, she said.

The Palm Springs Unified School District saw the

number of exempt students rise from 108 last year

to 119 this year, lead nurse Gennette Furtado said.

That number includes children exempt for medical

reasons and a one-year increase is not necessarily a trend, Furtado said.

“The most important thing is that whoever's

exempt, there is a record for those kids,” she said.

Unvaccinated children will be removed from school

if a case of the disease is discovered in school.

Countywide, the immunization rate for school-aged

children is around 97 percent, said Barbara Cole,

director for disease control at the Riverside

County Department of Public Health.

“We get periodic calls of people who are

concerned” about vaccines, Cole said. “But

overall, I think our rates are moving forward.”

In Riverside County, about 70 percent of children

under age 2 are vaccinated, a number the health

department is looking to increase through

education, incentive program and access to low

cost or free immunizations, Cole said.

The number of vaccine preventable diseases is at

“historically low levels,” according to the 2007

Communicable Disease Report released by the

Riverside County Department of Public Health.

An increase of pertussis in 2004 and 2005 could

be partially attributed to under-vaccination

among infants and children, the report stated,

but cases of the disease began to decline in 2006 and 2007.

The same CDC survey system Scripps

analyzed reported that at least 76,000 middle

school students around the country started the

last school year with exemptions that allowed

them to be incompletely vaccinated.

The surveys are incomplete because not all school

districts in all states file complete reports to

the CDC. Even so, experts who track the surveys

say the number of exemptions has expanded from

fewer than 1 percent to at least 2 percent or 3

percent of students in many states.

A CDC report issued in April found that more than

one in four toddlers under age 2 are not being

vaccinated as recommended, mostly due to doses

being missed rather than no shots at all.

“I'm afraid those numbers may more accurately

reflect what's happening with the vaccination of

young children,” said Dr. Offit, chief of

infectious diseases and head of the vaccine

institute at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.

Referring to the protection of the population,

Offit says he's afraid “we've already dropped

below the level of vaccine coverage where herd

immunity exists for some diseases. At some point,

we're going to be forced to decide whether it is

an inalienable right to catch and transmit potentially fatal infections.”

A Scripps News Service poll found that 56

percent of Americans think parents should be able

to exempt their children from vaccinations for “philosophical reasons.”

A series of measles outbreaks through July

represented the greatest surge of the disease in

this country in more than a decade.

It has infected at least 131 people in 15 states

and underscores the danger posed by pockets of

unvaccinated people, the CDC says.

Desert Sun staff writer

contributed to this report by Scripps News Service.

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Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

Vaccines - http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccine.htm

Vaccine Dangers & Homeopathy Online/email courses - next classes Sept 10, 2008