Cost blamed for drop in child vaccination rate

Health experts are looking at the escalating cost of vaccines as a possible explanantion for a recent drop in the number of children that are fully vaccinated before starting school.  (Source: “Many can't afford shots for kids, experts say,” Scripps Howard News Service/Columbus Dispatch, Aug. 28, 2008).

The cost to buy all vaccines for children up to age 12 was $155 in 1995. By 2007 that cost went up to $927 for a boy and $1,214 for a girl (including the new HPV vaccine).

A 2003 Institute of Medicine report said 16 percent of kids covered by private health insurance are in plans that don't cover vaccines. According to a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 135,000 children (out of about 4 million new students) started kindergarten last fall exempt from vaccine requirements.  The CDC also reported that at least 76,000 middle-school students started last school year with exemptions that allowed them to be incompletely vaccinated. And those CDC results are considered incomplete because not all school districts in the nation replied to the survey.