"This was the first time we'd seen a drop -- and it was a pretty big drop," Sarah Thomas, vice president of public policy and communication at NCQA, is quoted as saying to HealthDay. "We didn't really explore the reasons [for the trend], but one leading hypothesis is that parents have decided not to get their children vaccinated because of concerns about the potential for side effects and even autism."
Meanwhile, vaccination rates among poorer individuals on government welfare programs like Medicaid have been on the rise. Programs like "Vaccines for Children" (VFC) that provide free (taxpayer-funded) vaccines to doctors who serve eligible children are among those that have spurred the increase within this socioeconomic group.
Many experts insist that vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements in the world, but numerous studies point not only to their ineffectiveness, but also to the harm they cause to both children and adults (http://vactruth.com/).
