LOS ANGELES — According to a new report, some Los Angeles schools have astoundingly low vaccination rates not far off from those in developing countries, such as parts of Africa.
An investigation by The Hollywood Reporter found that vaccination rates are surprisingly low in wealthier LA neighborhoods including Malibu, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills. The plummeting rates at schools in these neighborhoods are due to the fact that educated, well-off parents are refusing to get their children vaccinated.
The proportion of students whose parents have chosen not to follow school standard immunization requirements in LA County alone is staggering, especially with the recent outbreak of Enterovirus 68, a potentially fatal whooping cough threatening children across the country.
In LA’s Westside area, the numbers of vaccination exemptions for preschoolers—the children of entertainment industry-types, more likely—have increased by 26 percent over the last two school years, reaching 9.1 percent. The overall exemption rates in LA County also raised to about 2.2 percent during the 2013-14 school year.
Instead, parents of these wealthier children are opting for “personal belief exemptions,” or PBE’s, which basically allow them to submit a exempt form instead of paperwork documenting shots. Yet, this demographic of privileged children is at greater risk of infection compared to children in other parts of the city.
Anti-vaccination movements are widespread across North America. Parents create excuses for not wanting to get their kids protected, including avoiding the hassle of obtaining a doctor’s signature, as well as fear of unproven anxieties like allergies and asthma attacks.
“If I talk to most of my patients, who are very savvy by the way, they will say they know someone directly or indirectly who felt that their child has not been the same since the vaccine,” said Miracle Mile pediatrician Dr. Lauren Feder.
However, experts say that the risk of infection for “MMVR” diseases (measles, mumps, varicella, rubella) and pertussis (a.k.a. whooping cough, which causes uncontrollable wheezing and high-risk respiratory problems) is greater when six percent or more of the population has not received full immunizations.
“When people say some of this might be related to low vaccine rates among people, that’s a huge understatement,” said Dr. Gerald Evans, a professor of medicine and director of infection control at Kingston General Hospital. “It’s all because of vaccination rates falling. It’s 100 percent blamed on the fact that people aren’t getting vaccinated.”
The astounding numbers of some Santa Monica and Beverly Hills preschools are in line with low immunization rates in developing countries like Chad and South Sudan, according to the World Health Organization.
The California Department of Public Health also reported nearly 8,000 cases of whooping cough, with 267 requiring hospitalization and 58 of those in intensive care. Ninety-four percent of the cases reported this year affected young children as well as infants.
Over 1,300 of those cases in the outbreak are from Los Angeles County alone.
America is at a vulnerable time, with fears of Ebola and various deadly enteroviruses threatening the nation. With US whooping cough reports on a faster rise than the number of vaccination exemptions, parents’ motives are being questioned and a call for responsibility to children has been made.
“It’s a smoldering fire that has started and it could be a complete wildfire if vaccination rates continue to fall,” said Dr. Deborah Legman, the associate director of pediatric infectious diseases at Cedars-Sinai Medical.
(With reports from Global News, California Healthline, and The Hollywood Reporter)
