(WWJ) Public health leaders, doctors, and advocates are pleading with parents to get their kids vaccinated before school starts in just a few weeks.
Health officials say measles-cases nationwide have reached a 35-year-high, including two outbreaks in Michigan so far this year.
Adding to the concern: Michigan's school vaccine waiver rate has reached over 6% — the highest it has been in a decade.
That worries school Rachel VanderBrink, a Kent Intermediate School District nurse consultant and Michigan Director of the National Association of School Nurses.
"Flu, pertussis, measles, they're not mild illnesses," VanderBrink said. "For students with chronic health conditions, catching the flu is not just taking a couple days off. If can mean severe complications, emergency room visits, hospitalizations that set back their academic and physical development for months."
Health officials say that most of this year's cases have been domestic; meaning they're spread by people in the U.S. to other people within the country.
Wayne State University infectious disease professor Dr. Gretchen Newman says fewer people are getting vaccinated, and that drop in vaccines could have long-term consequences.
"What we are seeing with measles right now is what happens when we forget what it's like to have something like measles — to have a vaccine-preventable illness come back," Newman said, in a interview with WWJ's Amanda Forrester. "The United States is on track to lose its measles elimination status in 2026."
She stressed the the number one way to precent measles is to be vaccine with the MMR vaccine.
Brad Roth, with the group "Grandparents for Vaccines," said there was a time when parents were all on pretty much the same page about vaccines.
"For many of you, 1954 might seem like ancient history. but there are people who remember. Grandparents remember," Roth said. "There are grandparents out there right now who lines up in second grade and had that polio shot. Grandparents remember that joy that this nation felt when that polio vaccine was found to be safe and effective."
Roth said he encourages all parents to ask questions and share any concerns they may have about vaccine safety with their pediatrician.
In that vein, Dr. Newman acknowledged that there is a lot of distrust in institutions these days, and she understand that parents just want to do what's best for their kids.
But there's a lot of misinformation out there, she said, being spread by those who do not have your children's best interest in mind.
"Who benefits when people don't trust public health? It's not your community who benefits," Newman said. "It's people who make money off of fear. And so, it's people who sell you supplements that don't work, but cost a lot of money and sound quote, unquote 'clean' — the most unregulated word in anything."
