Vaccines Keep Our Children Safe
Dr. Martha Edwards
We write as 730 pediatricians across South Carolina, members of the South Carolina chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who have spent the past months navigating a reality many of us were trained to prevent: a significant measles outbreak in our Upstate communities.
This outbreak began in a small, close-knit community shaped by a history that includes deep and understandable mistrust of government institutions.
We have cared for children from this community before and have seen preventable diseases surface in isolated cases. Until now, those cases did not spread to surrounding communities because surrounding immunization rates were high.
What has changed are exposure rates and uncertainty. Parents today are navigating an overwhelming and contradictory stream of information about vaccines, from social media feeds, influencers, and even political voices.
In exam rooms across our state, we are seeing something new: not outright opposition in most cases, but confusion. Parents who want to do the right thing are no longer sure what the right thing is, and the result is declining vaccination rates.
