Texas Student Vaccine Exemptions Quadruple

In light of the recent Measles outbreaks in Europe and South America, and the startling rise in reported cases in the United States - officials have launched a full scale investigation into exactly where our weakness lies, and the results are alarming - especially for Texas.  According to the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) website:

So far in 2018, 124 individual cases of measles have been confirmed in 22 states and the District of Columbia. The states that have reported cases to CDC are Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington."

Even though the CDC reports that these numbers are similar to other years, 2018 is trending higher in the number of reported cases.  With a little under 4 months left in the year, we have already topped last years total number of reported cases - 118 in 15 states.  With more than a quarter of the year left, the disease has spread to 7 more states and at least 6 more people.

In Europe, more than 41,000 cases of Measles were reported in the first half off this year alone - and other countries are having similar spikes in infection rates.  The CDC says that the best way to prevent the spread of this illness is proper vaccination, but researchers in Texas discovered that the Lone Star state was falling behind in its shots.  In the past decade, the number of students forgoing vaccinations has quadrupled - causing some health experts concern that the next outbreak might start in their own backyard.

Mystatesman.com reports that Travis County has gone from 0.66 % to 2.72 % in the past 10 years, and they're not alone. Austin, Houston, Fort Worth, and Plano were among 15 hotspots in the US, reporting the highest number of kindergartners not getting vaccinated for non-medical reasons.