Kindergarten Vaccine Exemptions Hit Record High as US Suffers Worst Measles Outbreak in Decades

Data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday showed that the rate of kindergartners with vaccine exemptions hit a record high over the last year as the nation's top health official continued to spread falsehoods about vaccine safety.

In all, CDC reported that 155,000 students, or 4.2% of all kindergartners enrolled in public schools, received vaccination exemptions in the 2025-2026 school year, an increase from the 3.6% of publicly enrolled kindergartners who received such exemptions in the prior school year.

The Washington Post noted in a Monday report on the data that "the biggest factor in the increasing exemption rate came from families seeking nonmedical exemptions," and that exemption rates now exceed 5% in nearly half of all US states.

The jump in vaccine exemptions comes as the US is dealing with the largest outbreak of measles it's experienced in over three decades.

Numbers released by the CDC last month revealed that there have been 2,318 recorded cases of measles this year, the highest number of cases recorded since the virus was declared eliminated in the country more than two decades ago.

Experts have said that this surge in measles cases is largely due to lower uptake of the measles vaccine.

Dr. James Campbell, member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Infectious Diseases, told CBS News in an interview published Monday that the primary reason for the drop in vaccinations was the "chaos and confusion in vaccination recommendation systems in the last year or so," since the start of the second Trump administration.

Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the Post that it doesn't take a very large decrease in the vaccination rate to give the measles virus an opening.

"For some diseases like measles, even a small decrease in vaccination rates can lead to more outbreaks of disease," Racine explained, "because community immunity requires over 95% of susceptible individuals to be immunized."

"This risk is real," Raccine added. "The United States is experiencing a 35-year high for measles cases as federal officials continue to elevate misleading and disproven information about vaccines, inserting unnecessary fear and confusion into families’ decision making. And we are seeing the results."

The results could get even worse if President Donald Trump's executive order calling for the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination be divided into three separate shots gets implemented.

Experts have warned that separating the vaccines means that families will be less likely to have their children get all three shots, and the CDC's own website notes that "no published scientific evidence shows any benefit in separating the combination MMR vaccine into three individual shots."

Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care, said surging exemptions were a direct result of misinformation about vaccines being pushed by both Trump and US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"Connect the dots," said Woodhouse. "Donald Trump and RFK Jr. frequently spew anti-vax lies to a national audience, parents get needlessly freaked out, exemptions surge, vaccination rates plummet, outbreaks of preventable diseases shatter records, kids die. Trump’s allergy to science and reality is its own deadly virus."

Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as US surgeon general during Trump's first term, also criticized Kennedy's leadership in a Tuesday social media post.

"You can’t be the leader of all health policy in America, AND claim you’re for childhood vaccinations, AND ignore this trend/not have a clear plan to increase vaccine uptake," Adams wrote, "at least not if you’re serious about improving America’s health."