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Vaccination rates among kindergarteners in the US have hit a record low for the third successive year, as more and more parents make use of religious exemptions, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.
Diptheria vaccination rates, for example, have fallen to 92.1% from 94.9% before the pandemic.
Vaccination rates for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab have fallen from 95.2% before the pandemic to 92.5%.
At the same time, the number of nonmedical exemptions, including religious and philosophical exemptions, has increased from 3.3% during the 2023-24 school year to 3.5% in the 2024-25 school year.
Just four states—California, Maine, New York and Connecticut—prohibit religious or philosophical exemptions from school vaccine mandates.
According to the CDC’s figures, the percentage of kindergartners with religious exemptions increased in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The percentage exceeds 5% in 17 states, with Utah having the highest percentage, at 15.4%.
The percentage of unvaccinated children is likely to be higher because of the growing number of homeschooled children in the US.
About 7% of all school-age children are now estimated to be taught at home.
There is widespread support for revisions to the vaccine schedule and significant opposition to mandatory vaccination.
A recent poll of over 1,000 registered voters showed that 60% of parents with young children supported reviewing the current childhood vaccine schedule.
A study published last month showed 60% of pregnant women and young mothers are considering delaying or refusing routine vaccinations for their children.
And a study funded by the National Institutes of Health found that 74% of elementary school personnel surveyed in California said their schools did not have the authority to deny medical exemptions and that a majority opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Yesterday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced mercury will no longer be used in vaccines in the US.
In a video posted to social media, Kennedy said thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in flu vaccines that are administered to pregnant women and children, will be banned.
“I’m proud to finally deliver on a long-overdue promise: protecting our most vulnerable from unnecessary mercury exposure,” Kennedy posted on X.
The main ingredient in thimerosal is ethylmercury, which has been designated as a neurotoxin, carcinogen, and mutagen, as well as being known to cause reproductive damage.
“The amount of ethylmercury in the flu shot that CDC just banned under my order is 25,000 times the EPA’s safety level for drinking water,” Kennedy said in the video.
Kennedy also had choice words for federal agencies, accusing them of ignoring mounting evidence about thimerosal’s toxicity, including an admission in 2001 by FDA official William Egan that thimerosal’s effects on humans had never been studied.
He also cited a study that shows mercury remains in the brain for up to 27 years, a CDC study linking flu shots to miscarriage and another study linking maternal vaccination during pregnancy to childhood autism.
“Why were we injecting this toxin into babies and pregnant women?” Kennedy asked.
“Federal and state laws classify expired thimerosal vaccines as hazardous waste. Yet they were good enough to put into your bloodstream?”
