Childhood vaccine exemption rates hit a record high, CDC data shows

The percentage of kids who didn't get their recommended childhood vaccines rose again last school year, continuing the post-pandemic trend of Americans opting out of vaccinations.

During the 2024-25 school year, 4.1% of kindergartners — about 138,000 kids — had a vaccine exemption, surpassing the previous record high of 3.7% during the prior school year.

Nearly all exemptions are listed as nonmedical, meaning the kids aren’t getting vaccines for religious or other personal reasons.

The data, reported Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comes as 2025 has logged the highest number of measles cases in 33 years: 1,333 cases in 39 states.

Dr. Richard Besser, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC, said he expects the rate of vaccination exemptions to continue to rise as long as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a long-time anti-vaccine activist — is health and human services secretary.

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