Dive Brief:

• A rise in preventable diseases has some states reconsidering their vaccination laws.  
• Many states allow for an all-encompassing "personal belief" exemption, which allows families to opt out of pre-enrollment vaccinations without evidence of religious or medical reasoning.  
• Some attribute this lax stance on the outbreak of various preventable and thought-to-be-eliminated diseases like measles and whooping cough.  

Dive Insight:

According to an Al Jazeera article on the anti-vaccination movement, this year at least 53 people in 10 states have been infected with measles. What makes this fact surprising is that just a decade ago, the United States was essentially measles-free.  

The United States had mostly eradicated many diseases when it imposed vaccination laws on schools, but the increasingly lax wording of the laws has allowed for perhaps too much legroom. A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly half of children born between 2004 and 2008 and not up to date on their vaccines.