US Kindergarten Vaccine Exemptions Hit Record 4.2%

CDC:US Kindergarten Vaccine RatesExemptions IncreaseHit inRecord 2025-20264.2%

Published 2 days ago

US Kindergarten Vaccine Exemptions Hit Record 4.2%

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Above: Boy gets an MMR vaccine at a vaccine clinic in Lubbock, Texas, on March 1, 2025. Image credit: Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images

The Spin

Vaccine exemptions hitting a record 4.2% of kindergartners is a public health disaster unfolding in slow motion. —Measles measles is already at a 35-year high, and dropping MMR coverage below the 95% threshold needed for herd immunity is reckless. The Trump administration's executive order pushing states to expand religious exemptions and split the MMR into three separate shots defies broad scientific consensus and actively undermines childhood immunization. Preventable disease surges are the direct consequence of politicizing a vaccine schedule that took decades of rigorous science to build.

Michelle Au on X CNN

Mel Mann on X

Vaccination rates among kindergartners are largely holding steady, and framing a modest exemption uptick as catastrophic ignores that most core coverage numbers barely budged. Trump's executive order advances parental choice and aligns U.S. recommendations with peer nations, —as the U.S. recommends more vaccine doses than virtually any developed country, and scaling back to 11 consensus vaccines reflects sound science, not anti-vaccine sentiment. Empowering families and doctors to make individualizedindividual decisions is a reasonable reform, not a public health emergency.