New study shows non-medical vaccine exemptions keep increasing as measles spreads
The number of parents opting out of vaccinating their children for religious or personal reasons has increased steadily in the past few years, new research has found.
According to a study published in JAMA on Wednesday based on a joint data investigation by NBC News and Stanford University, the median rate of families choosing a non-medical exemption for vaccination was 0.6% in the 2010-2011 school year. It was 3.1% in the 2023-2024 school year.
A little over 53% of the counties saw a rise in non-medical exemptions greater than 1% between 2010-2020 and 2021-2024, while 5.3% of counties reported a jump greater than 5% in that time.
Researchers looked at data from 3,053 counties in 45 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, mostly for children entering kindergarten. They noted that there was wide variation of non-medical exemptions among counties and states, as well as an increase after the COVID-19 pandemic.
All states require kids to be vaccinated against certain diseases to go to public school, but 47, including Washington D.C., allow exemptions for religious or personal beliefs, KFF wrote.
States which had the highest rates of non-medical exemptions were Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Wisconsin and Arizona, the study showed.
“Continuation of these increases in non-medical exemptions could contribute to declining vaccination and resurgence of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases in the U.S.,” researchers wrote in the study. “These findings support the need to reconsider policy on use of non-medical exemptions, which are actively being debated, to address declining childhood vaccination in the U.S.”
Dr. Nathan Lo, assistant professor of infectious diseases at Stanford University and an author of the study, called the growing number of exemptions “concerning.”
“These may look like small numbers, but they may be enough to be the tipping point for something like measles,” Lo told NBC News.
Measles spreading
As Straight Arrow News previously reported, measles cases in the U.S. as well as globally are rising. An outbreak in South Carolina that started in October spread across state lines to North Carolina.
The South Carolina Department of Public Health on Friday reported 558 current cases in the state. There are 531 people are in quarantine, and 85 are in isolation. In isolation, people who are sick from a contagious disease are separated from people who are not sick, while quarantine is when people exposed to an illness are separated from the general public.
Those who got the measles are largely unvaccinated (483). Six were partially vaccinated with one dose of the recommended two-dose MMR sequence, 13 were vaccinated and the rest’s status is unknown.
If outbreaks continue, the U.S. risks losing its measles-free designation. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 2,144 measles cases across 45 states in 2025, the highest count since the early 1990s.
Canada lost its elimination status last November after recording more than 5,000 cases.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
