Are you willing to get the Covid vaccine when offered?

America’s health leaders worry that declining vaccination rates can lead to the return of deadly diseases and thousands of avoidable deaths.

Robert Califf, M.D., commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Peter Marks, M.D., who oversees vaccine regulation at the agency, wrote in JAMA last week that they were concerned about falling vaccination rates.

“The situation has now deteriorated to the point that population immunity against some vaccine-preventable infectious diseases is at risk,” they wrote. “Thousands of excess deaths are likely to occur this season due to illnesses amenable to prevention or reduction in severity of illness with vaccines.”

They point to measles as the prime example of a once-handled virus making a sudden return. In the U.S., cases of the highly contagious virus have sporadically emerged around the country in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic. Just last week, Philadelphia officials warned that at least four people were infected in a measles cluster linked to the city’s iconic Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

“Regrettably, pediatric vaccine hesitancy now has been responsible for several measles outbreaks in the U.S.,” Dr. Califf and Dr. Marks continue.

It’s not just the U.S., however. The World Health Organization reported a 40% jump in measles deaths globally in 2022, and a 30% increase in European cases.

The pandemic led to a wave of vaccine hesitancy, with many casting doubts on the new class of shots meant to fight the pandemic — an in-turn to vaccines as a whole. Many U.S. states also loosened vaccine exemptions for children, allowing more children to attend school without receiving shots to prevent measles and other infections.

Some states, such as Mississippi, have recorded drastic falls in vaccine uptake since the loosening of these mandates.

The pair of FDA officials point to “parents with at least a college degree who preferred social media narratives over evidence-based vaccine information delivered by clinicians” as being at fault for falling vaccination rates................

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