“The Northwest is a black hole for religious exemptions” from vaccination, says Lorraine Duncan, immunization manager in the Oregon Health Authority’s Public Health Division. Last year, 5.6% of Oregon kindergartners had a religious exemption for vaccines, up from 2% a decade ago, Ms. Duncan says. In some school zones around Eugene and Portland, more than 10% of children have religious exemptions, and in pockets of the state’s southwestern corner, exemption rates are more than 20%, she says.
When I was a kid, there were certain vaccinations we got because…well, because we didn’t want to die from whatever horrible disease the vaccine was supposed to protect us from. No one really questioned it; that’s just what we did. It turns out there are very good reasons reasons for getting vaccinated. All one really needs to do is consider the infleunza epidemic of 1918, when somewhere between 20 million and 40 million people died from a disease that’s now eminently preventable. Influenza is but one of many diseases that, left unchecked, could have similar dire consequences today. (Bird flu, anyone??)
Here’s the problem, though; Vaccination programs are only effective if at least 95% of the population is vaccinated. So, welcome to the Pacific Northwest, home of the “religious exemption”, which is Latin for “we don’t believe in vaccinations, and we’re perfectly willing to take all y’all down with us.”
The good news is that when we all contract and eventually die agonizingly from the measles this summer, at least we’ll know why.
Party on, Garth; it’s What Jesus Would Do.