For my new readers and subscribers, here are 2 excerpts to illustrate some of the issues I address.
Sample 1:
In 2011, Washington was the first state where there was a legislative attempt to eliminate the non-medical exemptions to school attendance vaccine requirements. I reviewed the data used by bill sponsors to lobby the legislators.
Sample 2:
In 2018, Dr. Peter Hotez co-authored a paper, “The state of the antivaccine movement in the United States: A focused examination of nonmedical exemptions in states and counties”, identifying certain counties with high exemption rates. This study was widely disseminated and commanded the news cycle for a week or two. Dr. Hotez assigned Camas County’s 26.67% exemption rate to “highly organized, well-funded, aggressive, anti-vaccine efforts.” I looked at the same data and reached a different conclusion.