Where The Most Anti-Vaxxers Get Exemptions 

​Currently, eighteen states — Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio , Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin — allow parents to opt out of vaccinating their children for so-called philosophical reasons before enrolling them in school. ("Philosophical reasons" is a euphemism for "not believing in the science that overwhelmingly shows that vaccines are safe.") These waivers, called non-medical exemptions or NMEs, put communities at risk for outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough. 

Of course, NMEs wouldn't be a big deal if only a tiny fringe of parents were seeking them out. Herd immunity can be maintained if only a small percentage of children remain unvaccinated — here's an illustration of how that works. Where things really get dangerous is when a high percentage of children are going without vaccines. A new study published in PLoS Med found a "significant inverse association" between the availability of NMEs and rates of measles, mumps and rubella vaccination. Looking at 12 of the 18 states that offer NMEs (county data wasn't available for the other 6), researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston found that in areas where NMEs are available, lots of parents are taking advantage of them:

If you have unvaccinated infants or a compromised immune system, uh, maybe avoid the areas in deep red. And if you already live there, try lobbying your state lawmakers to stop letting anti-vaxxers endanger public health.

[PLoS Med via Lifehacker]