Study finds correlation between vaccination rates, disease immunity

Researchers at ASU’s College of Health Solutions find increase in vaccination exemptions, decrease in herd immunity among Arizona schoolchildren Evidence suggests the use of vaccines goes as far back as the year 1000, but the modern-day practice of widespread inoculation can be attributed to English physician Edward Jenner, whose smallpox vaccine saved countless lives at the end of the 18th century, when roughly 10% of the British population had already been wiped out by the disease. Since then, vaccines have come a long way — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate they save the lives of 2 to 3 million people every year. Yet, in the late 1990s, a single (since-determined to be fraudulent) study linking the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to developmental disorders in children was all it took to ignite a concerning downward trend in vaccination rates. Despite the obvious health risks associated with the anti-vaccine ideology,...