As vaccine bill dies in the Colorado Senate, Greeley doctors say low vaccination rates could lead to outbreak
Amy Driscoll, a pediatrician with UCHealth in Greeley and the medical supervisor for nurses in the Greeley-Evans School District 6, says she’s lucky to be here.
In the 1950s, her grandma sent Driscoll’s mom to care for children who had contracted measles. Her grandma thought Driscoll’s mom had been vaccinated for the disease.
Her mom contracted measles and encephalitis, or brain swelling, as a result. She developed seizures, and missed half a year of school. She had to learn how to write again as she recovered from the disease.
That’s one reason Driscoll hopes all her patients will vaccinate their children, but a bill that could have made it more difficult for parents to opt their children out of the vaccine died Thursday in the Colorado Senate.
What is the danger?
Herd immunity is the phenomenon that stops a germ responsible for infection from being transmitted between people. When a population reaches a so-called herd immunity threshold, it helps protect people who cannot be vaccinated.
Because of how contagious measles is, there’s a higher threshold — 93% to 95% of people in a given population who need to be vaccinated to reach that threshold, according to the World Health Organization.
In the Greeley-Evans School District 6, several schools have a vaccination rate below 95% — mostly its charter schools, according to data from the Colorado Department Public Health and Environments
As a whole, the district has a 97.2% immunization rate. Frontier Academy, a district charter school, has one of the highest exemption rates at 6.8%, and 92.8% of its students are up-to-date on their vaccinations.
The U.S. vaccination rate was 91.5% in 2017 and the Colorado up-to-date vaccination rate was 87.2%, according to the U.S. Department of Public Health and Environment.
Although Colorado has seen only one case of measles this year, from Jan. 1-April 26, 2019, 704 cases of measles were confirmed in 22 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC said measles has been eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, but 19 years later the agency says it’s tackling the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994.
Measles is the most contagious illness healthcare providers vaccinate for, Driscoll said, which is why the decrease in people being vaccinated is leading to such a steep increase in cases.
“You could be in the room for 10 minutes with somebody who has the measles, and if you’re not vaccinated you have a 90% chance of getting the measles,” she said.
About one in every 1,000 children who contract the measles will also get encephalitis, or brain swelling, as a result of the disease like Driscoll’s mom, according to the CDC, and one or two in every 1,000 will die from it.
But about one in every 20 children who contracts the disease will get pneumonia, and about one in every 10 will get an ear infection, which can lead to hearing loss.
Why are vaccination rates lower now?
Much of the misinformation about vaccines came from one study published in the 1990s. The study, Driscoll said, drew a false line between vaccines and autism.
Driscoll said none of the medical professionals in her office have seen a life-threatening reaction to a vaccine, but they have seen kids get meningitis and lose their hearing, or get chicken pox, and encephalitis as a result of kids not being vaccinated.
To see the vaccination rates at schools in the Greeley-Evans School District 6 and other Weld County school districts, go to bit.ly/SchoolDistrictVaccines.
But part of some parents’ lack of concern could also be because most people haven’t seen what the country was like before vaccines. In the early 1900s, she said, people had large families in part because they didn’t expect all of their children to live.
Other reasons, like religion, can also factor into parents’ decision not to vaccinate.
About 70% of vaccine exemptions are non-medical, Driscoll said. Those exemptions are what HB-1312, the vaccine bill, was trying to make more difficult.
Medical exemptions, she said, are often for children who are on immune suppressors, or who have cancer and are going through treatment that lowers their bodies’ immunity.
Those children could be at risk if exposed to a child who isn’t vaccinated, and who carries a disease.
Is District 6 ready for the possibility of an outbreak?
Driscoll, the medical supervisor for nurses in District 6, said the district is always working to refine its procedures, like after the norovirus outbreak earlier in the school year that shut down five district schools and programs.
She said the outbreak, while a difficult time for families, students and schools, was an opportunity for the district to review and consider revising its outbreak policies, to prepare for any possible future outbreaks as well as it can.
With lowering vaccine rates, she said, it’s a conversation nurses are continuously having.
Supporters of Colorado’s controversial vaccine bill say they will continue to push to make it more difficult to opt a child out of vaccines, despite pushback from Gov. Jared Polis on the bill.
Sen. Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, the only republican supporting the bill, told The Denver Post it will be brought back to the Legislature next year.
— Emily Wenger is the public money reporter for the Greeley Tribune, covering education and government in Weld County and keeping an eye on how they’re spending your money. You can reach her at (970) 392-4468 or firstname.lastname@example.org or on Twitter at @emilylwenger.