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Data Investigation: Childhood Vaccination Rates Are Backsliding Across the U.S.
For more than a half-century, vaccines have had remarkable success eradicating the most lethal and devastating childhood infectious diseases, saving millions of lives and ushering in a relative golden era of global public health. But now, America is dangerously backsliding. The vast majority of counties across the U.S. are experiencing declining rates of childhood vaccination and have been for years, according to an NBC News data investigation, the most comprehensive analysis of vaccinations and school exemptions to date.
This six-month investigation, done in collaboration with Stanford University, gathered massive amounts of data from state governments and archives of public records reaching back years or decades. The data focused on core childhood vaccines that, together, regard someone to be “up to date” on immunizations; these are the measles, mumps, rubella, polio, whooping cough and diphtheria shots.
With the help of infectious disease researchers at Stanford, NBC News filed scores of requests for documents, including materials obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and wrestled different types of data into a standardized format to map and compare rates across thousands of counties.
A Look at Recent Changes to State Vaccine Requirements for School Children
Routine vaccination rates for kindergarten children have declined since the COVID-19 pandemic began, while exemptions from school vaccination requirements, particularly non-medical exemptions, have increased. These trends coincide with shifting attitudes toward childhood vaccination likely fueled in part by vaccine misinformation. The past few years have seen more skepticism and confusion among the public about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, a decline in trust of health authorities, and a growing partisan divide.
Shifts in vaccine attitudes are reflected in recent state level policy changes, with state lawmakers introducing more than 2,500 vaccine-related bills since 2021, with almost half targeting vaccine requirements. In addition, Florida officials recently announced plans to eliminate all school vaccination requirements.
Despite these changes, recent KFF polling found that public confidence in the safety of routine vaccines like MMR remains high and about eight in ten (81%) parents overall as well as large majorities of parents who identify as Democrats, independents, and Republicans support current state vaccine requirements, saying students should be required to be vaccinated against measles and polio to attend public schools with some exceptions. This policy watch examines recent state policy changes to school vaccine requirements and the extent to which they may impact vaccination trends.
Autistic Children More Likely to Experience Persistent Stomach Problems
Children diagnosed with autism are far more likely to experience ongoing gastrointestinal (GI) problems than their typically developing peers. That’s the finding of a new UC Davis MIND Institute study published in Autism. The research also found that these stomach and digestive issues are linked to greater challenges with sleep, communication, sensory processing and behavior.
The study followed 475 children between the ages of 2 and 12, including 322 children with autism and 153 with typical development. Families participated in detailed physician-led interviews at multiple time points. This allowed researchers to track both the frequency and persistence of gastrointestinal symptoms throughout childhood.
The findings show that autistic children were not only more likely to report GI problems, but they were also more likely to have multiple symptoms at once. It was also more likely for these symptoms to persist over many years. Importantly, these symptoms often did not have an identified medical cause. This highlights the need for clinicians and families to pay closer attention to children’s overall health and well-being.
‘I Love You Too!’ My Family’s Creepy, Unsettling Week With an AI Toy
‘I’m going to throw that thing into a river!” my wife says as she comes down the stairs looking frazzled after putting our four-year-old daughter to bed. To be clear, “that thing” is not our daughter, Emma. It’s Grem, an AI-powered stuffed alien toy that the musician Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, helped develop with toy company Curio.
Designed for kids aged three and over and built with OpenAI’s technology, the toy is supposed to “learn” your child’s personality and have fun, educational conversations with them. It’s advertised as a healthier alternative to screen time and is part of a growing market of AI-powered toys. When I agreed to experiment on my child’s developing brain, I thought an AI chatbot in cuddly form couldn’t be any worse for her than watching Peppa Pig. But I wasn’t prepared for how attached Emma became to Grem, or how unsettlingly obsequious the little alien was.
The attachment wasn’t immediate; when we first took Grem out of the box, he/her/it (we decided it goes by multiple pronouns) started bleeping and babbling extremely loudly, and Emma yelled: “Turn it off!” But once it was properly connected to the internet and paired with the Curio app — which records and transcribes all conversations — she was hooked. She talked to the thing until bedtime.
New York’s Ban on Addictive Social Media Feeds for Kids Takes Shape With Proposed Rules
New York’s attorney general on Monday proposed regulations for its crackdown on addictive social media feeds for children, including rules for verifying a user’s age.
The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, passed last year, prohibits social media companies from showing feeds personalized by algorithms to users under 18 unless they have a parent’s consent. Instead, feeds on apps like TikTok and Instagram would be limited to posts from accounts young users follow.
The law also bars companies from sending notifications to users under 18 between midnight and 6 a.m. The proposed rules for implementing the provisions include standards for determining a user’s age and parental consent.
“Companies may confirm a user’s age using a number of existing methods, as long as the methods are shown to be effective and protect users’ data,” Attorney General Letitia James’ office said.
