the legislature has to fund Knowles Nelson again, and
what priorities they'll choose.
>> Turning to health news, a new Kaiser Family
Foundation survey shows adults with a higher usage
of AI chatbots are more likely to believe false
information about vaccines. Overall, child vaccination
rates have decreased globally since the pandemic.
But as “Here& Now” student journalist Elijah Pines
points out, vaccination rates have been decreasing
and Wisconsin parents seeking waivers increasing
since the mid 80s. >> Wisconsin student
immunization law mandates that any student wanting to
enter the public school system must have the
required vaccines. If a student doesn't meet the
requirements, parents may be charged up to $25 per
day. Their child is noncompliant, but no one in
Wisconsin has been fined under the statute that
mandates compliance since at least 2018, which is as
far back as court data tracks charges. Children
can instead get a waiver and be exempt from
vaccination if there is a medical or religious reason,
or for reasons of personal conviction. A personal
conviction waiver is when a parent believes their child
should be exempt from a vaccine. Wisconsin is one
of 19 states that allow for personal conviction waivers,
and their popularity has been steadily rising over
the past couple of decades. At the same time, the
number of students up to date on required vaccines
has gone down. For public health advocates, the
numbers are concerning, but vaccination rates in public
health is more nuanced than numbers alone. For starters,
despite personal conviction waivers going up, the vast
majority of students get the required vaccines 86.4%
in the last school year. Still, fewer students are
meeting requirements than they used to. One reason is
because there are more required shots than there
were when the law was first introduced from three
required vaccines in 1975 to 7 required vaccines.
Today, any time there has been a change in
requirements, compliance goes down. These numbers
also track all required vaccines, both who's
waiving some and who is waiving them all. Last year,
only 1.3% of students had waivers exempting them from
all vaccines, and that's lower than it was in the
previous year. Ultimately, the state's job to control
public health has to respect individuals
decisions, and a parent can only control what's best
for their own child. So how can parents make the best
choice when there's fewer vaccines? Protecting the
public? According to Wisconsin DHS, the best
answer is talking with the child's doctor, saying
public health and health care providers across the
state are here to help families break down these
barriers to keep families safe from vaccine
preventable diseases. preventable diseases.