Oregon’s traditionally high rate of parents who don’t fully vaccinate their children has reached a worrying new record, health officials said.
Nearly 10% of kindergartners claimed a nonmedical exemption from at least one of the required school vaccines this school year, Oregon health officials announced. That’s the highest rate ever recorded in the state and marks an increase of more than one percentage point from the previous school year — when Oregon had the fourth-highest rate nationwide after Idaho, Alaska and Utah.
The new data comes at a time of increasing vaccine hesitancy in Oregon and across the country that’s gained steam under the Trump administration’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He founded the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine activist group, and recently appointed David Geier, an anti-vaccine advocate accused of practicing medicine without a license, to look for a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism though that theory has been widely debunked.
The newest numbers also coincide with measles outbreaks in 30 states among mainly unvaccinated children, with nearly 1,030 confirmed cases, including almost 130 hospitalizations and three deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cases have emerged in Washington and California but so far there has been none in Oregon. Last year 31 people contracted measles in the state.
The number of Oregon children vaccinated against the measles has reached an all-time low, health authority data shows. Only about 90% of Oregon kindergartners are now fully vaccinated against the disease, compared to 93% in 2022.
The measles vaccine is considered highly effective, and thanks to nationwide vaccine campaigns, the disease was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. But a 1998 study suggesting a potential link between the MMR vaccine and autism has fueled vaccine skepticism even though it was retracted and widely denounced.
State allows nonmedical exemptions
In Oregon, children are required to be vaccinated against a host of diseases to attend school, but the state allows parents to claim a nonmedical exemption — citing religious, philosophical or some other reason — provided they watch an online tutorial or speak to a physician.
Most kids in Oregon are fully vaccinated, but the proportion has dropped over the last three years to just over 86% of kindergartners getting all their shots this year, health authority data shows. That raises the specter of outbreaks of preventable diseases, especially in communities with low immunization rates.
“The increase in nonmedical exemptions weakens community immunity, creating opportunities for outbreaks of serious diseases that vaccines have nearly eradicated,” Dr. Paul Cieslak, the communicable disease director at the health authority, said in a statement.
The pandemic fueled vaccine hesitancy in Oregon, with doubts about the Covid-19 vaccine appearing to spill over to routine childhood immunizations, Jonathan Modie, a health authority spokesman, said in an email. Nonmedical exemptions have risen since then, with state data showing vaccination rates for all of the required school vaccines — including measles, chickenpox, Hepatitis B and polio — dropping statewide since 2022.
One disease that’s caused persistent outbreaks is pertussis. The latest data shows that 729 people have contracted whooping cough this year, with 121 cases in Washington County, 111 in Multnomah and 86 in Clackamas. The disease is easily spread, with immunization rates for the DTaP shot for pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus also sharply declining in recent years, from 92% of kindergartners being vaccinated in 2022 to 89.6% this year.
Rates vary among counties
The rates of nonmedical exemptions among kindergartners vary across counties. Overall, Wheeler County has the lowest rate — 61.5% — followed by 73.7% in Josephine County. On the high end, Gilliam County has the top rate at 92.3%, followed by Morrow County at 92% and Washington County at 90.7%.
Multnomah, Clackamas and Deschutes counties, among others, fall in the middle, with 80 to 89% of their kindergartners fully vaccinated.
Heather Kaisner, Deschutes County’s public health director, said in a video released by the health authority that there are areas in the county that are “highly unvaccinated, which is a huge concern for us.”
She said “concerned parents” often just ask their provider to give their children one or two shots and then might return later for another.
Dr. Patrick Luedtke, Lane County’s senior public health officer, noted a similar trend there.
“We have a significant number of people who are vaccine hesitant,” Ludkte said. “They’re asking a lot of questions before they’re going to make a decision.”
