The Real Reason Kids Aren’t Getting Vaccines - Not Personal Beliefs
That’s no mere hypothetical. In 1990, for example, an outbreak of measles killed 89 kids in the United States—most of them from poor families who said they couldn’t afford the vaccine. A 2008 outbreak in San Diego resulted in 12 cases, this time among kids whose parents had refused the vaccine—but authorities had to quarantine an additional 48 who were too young to be vaccinated. The episode cost taxpayers an estimated $10,376 per case.
Shannon Stokley, the acting associate director of science at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told me that many parents simply need a reminder. “You have so many things to remember when you have a child, and vaccines can just slip your mind,” she said. Indeed, sending out reminder texts has been shown to increase vaccination rates. Making shots convenient also helps. In response to a whooping cough outbreak last year, the state of Washington sought to get more teens and adults vaccinated. It plastered buses and billboards with ads; in some harder-hit counties, health departments sent out mobile inoculation units—if people couldn’t make it to a clinic, health workers would bring the shots to them. Within a year of the campaign, the adult vaccination rate had doubled.
To be sure, access to vaccines has been improving nationwide. The federal government now offers free shots to children who aren’t otherwise covered. But the program doesn’t cover adult vaccines, most of which cost from $20 to $100, even for diseases that are easily passed from adults to kids, like whooping cough—which can kill infants.
Unfortunately, short of an outbreak, money for expanded access is hard to come by. “It took an epidemic to make our pertussis push possible,” says Tim Church, a spokesman for Washington’s health department. And while Obamacare will make vaccines cheaper, it won’t ensure that people actually get their shots.