Vaccination rates for children are declining in Ohio and around the country. As kids are heading back to school, health officials are urging parents to buck the trend and ensure their kids have their shots.
Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said vaccines are safe and effective, and yet there are thousands of kindergartners coming to school for the first time this month without protection against diseases that can be serious.
"In the 2019-2020 school year, 89.9% of the state's incoming kindergartners met all vaccine requirements," Vanderhoff said. "This past school year, the percentage of kindergartners who met all requirements was down to 85.4%, or a drop of nearly 4.5% over five years."
Ohio law requires K-12 public school students to have vaccinations against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, chickenpox and meningitis. Medical exemptions are always allowed and non-medical exemptions for personal or religious reasons are permitted.
The Centers for Disease Control reports 35 measles outbreaks so far this year nationwide, compared to 16 in all of 2024. As of Aug. 19, there have been 1,375 measles cases across the country, with three deaths. An estimated 92% of those cases came from unvaccinated individuals or those with unknown vaccine status. Ohio has seen 35 reports of measles cases this year; 33 of those were in people who were unvaccinated.
Ohio activists against vaccines have pushed for legislation and even an constitutional amendment to eliminate all required immunizations, even childhood shots. Those haven't passed, though there was movement on the idea following the pandemic. Several Republican lawmakers who have signed onto previous efforts met last week at the White House with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has publicly criticized vaccines and has diverted dramatically from doctors who have long supported them and continue to do so.
'There's a rumor going around or a thought going around that vaccines don't undergo safety trials. I don't know who started that. I don't know why it's spreading, but that is not true," said Dr. Amy Edwards, medical director of pediatric infection control at UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland. "There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other safety studies, both pre-approval and post approval, that all uniformly show that vaccines are very, very, very safe."
"Our message around vaccines has not changed," Vanderhoff said. "It continues to be one of confidence in our vaccines and, and one of a reminder about how important those vaccines have been in saving the American people, and especially the people of Ohio, from suffering from some very bad illnesses that previous generations were not protected from."
