Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Pediatricians Push Back Against Rising Tide Of 'Vaccination Hesitancy'
The nation鈥檚 pediatricians are pushing back against parents who resist having their children vaccinated against a broad range of dangerous diseases by calling on states to stop offering waivers to those with non-medical objections to the practice. In a policy statement issued Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics also said that if parents continue to refuse vaccinations despite exhaustive efforts to change their minds, it would be 鈥渁cceptable鈥 for doctors to exclude these families from their practices. (Healy, 8/29)
More doctors are reporting encounters聽with parents refusing to vaccinate their kids than a decade ago, but parents鈥櫬爎easons for skipping immunizations have shifted in the past decade. A new survey published in Pediatrics on Monday reports that 87 percent of pediatricians in the United States say they encountered parents refusing to vaccinate their children in 2013. A decade earlier, 75 percent of doctors reported they had experienced vaccine refusals. The most common reason parents gave, according to doctors? The vaccines weren鈥檛 necessary. (Thielking, 8/29)
Reports of vaccine refusals were highest in the West, with 94 percent of doctors saying they had parents opt out in 2013, up from 85 percent in 2006. Interestingly, the reasons parents refused vaccines shifted slightly during the study period. In 2013, about 64 percent opted out because of concerns about the disproved link between vaccines and autism, down from 74 percent in 2006. Nearly 67 percent of parents in 2013 refused shots because of worries about safety, also down from nearly 74 percent. At the same time, those who refused shots because they thought they were unnecessary jumped from about 63 percent in 2006 to 73 percent in 2013. (Aleccia, 8/28)
Meanwhile, in California聽鈥
A federal judge will not immediately block a California law that requires all schoolchildren to be vaccinated and is one of the strictest in the nation for eliminating exemptions based on religious and personal beliefs. The ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego comes as the law faces its first test with the end of summer break. A lawsuit filed by 17 families and two foundations sought an injunction while the lawsuit works its way through the courts. The law went into effect July 1 and eliminated religious and personal beliefs as reasons for opting out of the state's mandatory immunizations. (Watson, 8/26)
