Northwest US measles cases prompt look at vaccine exemptions
Posted February 1, 2019 7:01 am.
Last Updated February 1, 2019 9:25 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER, Wash. — A measles outbreak near Portland, Oregon, has revived a bitter debate over so-called personal belief exemptions to childhood vaccinations.
At least 43 people in Washington and Oregon have fallen ill in recent weeks with the extraordinarily contagious virus.
More than a dozen more cases are suspected, and people who were exposed to the disease travelled to Hawaii and Bend, Oregon.
That raises the possibility of more cases among the unvaccinated.
Now state lawmakers in Washington want to remove a provision that allows parents to opt out of vaccines for personal or philosophical beliefs.
Four per cent of Washington secondary school students have non-medical vaccine exemptions.
In Oregon, which has a similar law, 7.5 per cent of kindergarteners in 2018 were missing shots for non-medical reasons.
Gillian Flaccus, The Associated Press
