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Article: U.S. Immunization Rates Uncertain; Public Health Officials Stopped Collecting Data on Infants in 1985
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- October 9, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1985, at roughly the midway point of the worldwide campaign
to raise childhood immunization rates fourfold to 80 percent, public
health officials in the United States took a new approach to the
problem.
They stopped counting.
As a result, the United States today is the only country in the
world that has no official figures on immunization rates of 1- or
2-year-olds. The official explanation was that data collection was
costly and the methodology was suspect, but critics contended that
the Reagan administration was embarrassed by the contrast between
improving immunization rates throughout the Third World and five
consecutive years of decline in the United States.
Even without ...