More U.S. Parents Opting Children Out of Vaccine Requirements, C.D.C. Reports
New York Times · LC · trust 67/100
The new data on vaccine exemptions during the 2025-26 school year come just a week after President Trump signed an executive order calling to scale back childhood shots.
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At a time when measles and other potentially deadly diseases are spreading, more American children are receiving exemptions allowing them to attend school without the routine childhood shots that can protect against those illnesses.
Roughly 4 percent of kindergartners in the United States were given a nonmedical exemption for at least one vaccine during the 2025-26 school year, a 18 percent jump from the previous year, according to new data released on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That rise, the largest annual increase recorded in more than a decade, comes as a growing number of states look to loosen vaccine mandates or even do away with them entirely.
Exemption rates varied dramatically by state. While all states allow students to opt out of vaccine requirements for certain medical conditions, some also allow exemptions for religious or personal reasons.
In Utah, which has some of the most relaxed laws around school vaccine requirements, nearly 13 percent of kindergartners had a religious or personal exemption for at least one routine shot. The state is also in the midst of a monthslong measles outbreak that has infected more than 700 people. New York, which stopped allowing parents to opt out for religious reasons in 2019, reported no non-medical exemptions.
The new data has deepened concern among public health experts that American communities are losing the levels of immunity needed to protect against a number of highly contagious illnesses.
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