After decades of advanced medical research and technology, an American city is now less vaccinated than some third-world countries.
Seattle is a left-wing paradise: the first major city to institute the $15 minimum wage, and the much publicized home of "May Day" parades that have been used to celebrate the greatness of communism and socialism in year's past.
But even the possibly harmful minimum wage and the destructive protests may not have the same effect on the city of Seattle that a deadly virus may have.
Compared to countries like Rwanda and Sudan, Seattle has a lower percentage of kindergartners with the polio vaccine at 81.4 percent says KUOW, a local Seattle radio and news organization. Statewide, only 88.4 percent of kindergartners have received a polio vaccine.
This trend has Washington state's Office of Immunization and Child Profile worried said official Paul Throne.
“We're concerned because we need to have about 95 percent of those kids vaccinated to protect everybody else who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons or because they're too young," said Throne.
Image via KUOW
Polio has been nearly eradicated globally, but there are cases here and there. Four children were found to have had the polio virus in Minnesota in 2005, but nothing came of the infections.
Parents claim that they are avoiding vaccines for their children because they are not following what doctors are saying or prescribing.
"Polio is nonexistent in the states – so if you’re going to travel, it makes sense to do it... We are doing vaccines based on our family’s needs, not based on what doctors say we need to follow," says Julia Marks, a local Seattle mother who was interviewed by KUOW.
H/T KUOW