reasons why I started

This is Weekend Edition from NPR News, I'm Scott Simon. South Carolina is experiencing its largest measles outbreak in decades. 993 cases according to the State Department of Public Health and of that total, 926 patients are unvaccinated. Also, that's statewide total of 993, 936 cases are in just one county, Spartanburg. That's where NPR's Maria Gidoya went to ask people of their deciding whether or not to vaccinate their children. A good place to meet parents during a measles outbreak should be a vaccination clinic. Vaccination is how you stop an outbreak, but at this mobile unit set up in the parking lot of a Baptist church in Inman, South Carolina, we see only one. They just got their measles month's rebella for the first time today. That's Tracy Hobbs. She just emerged from the mobile clinic with her five-year-old twins, Joseph Analus. Joseph, here now, please. The twins should have gotten their first shots around 12 months of age, but Hobbs decided against it at the time. That's because her oldest child, now seven, was diagnosed with autism shortly after he got his first measles shot. Hobbs says she saw conflicting information about whether vaccines were to blame. So we were afraid that if we had gotten the kids, the vaccines that it might actually cause autism. And that's really messed up because what are you supposed to believe? Claims linking the vaccine to autism stem from a 1998 study that has been thoroughly debunked by a large body of research. But this misinformation still circulates widely. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long promoted the discredited claim, and he recently directed the CDC to change its website to say the link cannot be rolled out. Hobbs says it's confusing. You have one person saying, "Hey, this could cause the kid to get autism." And then you have somebody saying, "No, you know, if I've gotten conflicting information since the day they were born." But when her twins were also diagnosed with autism, even though they weren't vaccinated, Hobbs changed her mind. With measles spreading around her, she decided to get them the shot. The measles aren't really something to play with. Measles is highly contagious and can be dangerous. It can cause serious complications like pneumonia and brain swelling. And the virus wipes out parts of the immune system for several years after an infection. But as scary as measles is, it's not changing all parents' minds. "Niko, buckle up, okay?" We meet Margarita Deluca as she's strapping her four-year-old son and six-month-old twins into the car. They're headed to daycare. "They're always asleep by the time we get there." Despite living in a region that's experiencing a big measles outbreak, Deluca has not vaccinated her twins against measles. "I'm not worried about it, but even if they did catch it, we'll take care of it. We'll take care of it at home." A big factor in her reluctance to vaccinate comes from personal experience. She got her eldest son, Niko, vaccinated with routine shots for his first couple of years of life. But about a week after he got his two-year-old shots, Niko spiked a fever and experienced a seizure. It just like froze up and then he started convulsing right in my arms, the scariest thing ever. Niko recovered. Her pediatrician told her these seizures can happen when toddlers get high-feevers, and it's unlikely vaccines play the role. But Deluca remains dubious. "He hasn't had any seizures since, but he hasn't had no vaccines either. I'm not saying it's from that, but there is a chance." So like a growing number of parents nationwide, Deluca decided to forego vaccinations for Niko and his two younger siblings. "I'm grateful that I did not vaccinate them right now. Right now, maybe at five years old, their bodies are bigger and they have a higher immune system that can handle things." Local pediatrician Stuart Simpo says he hears this from other parents, and he tries to explain why that's risky. "What I would say is really this is the time where your child is at a higher risk, the younger they are, for complications from many of the things that we've vaccinated against." Simpo says he tries not to judge parents, but to listen to their fears. "The parent who's choosing not to vaccinate their child, they're not trying to make a bad medical decision. They want what's best for their child. And we have to understand where they're coming from." Still, many parents like Margarita Deluca are getting religious exemptions for school vaccine requirements. In Spartanburg County, the use of these exemptions has skyrocketed in recent years. From about 3.5% in 2020 to nearly 10% today, it's a trend that Kate Morrow finds alarming. When you decide not to vaccinate your child, you're not just making a decision for your child, you're making a decision for the community. Morrow moved to the area in 2019 with her husband and eight-year-old twins. She says it's hard to understand why so many parents in her community are turning against vaccines. They're time-tested, they're proven, they work, they've eradicated disease. And I don't really understand why we as a population are really questioning the science, questioning people that are experts in what to school for this. Morrow thinks a big part of the problem is parents are scared and confused. And she says it doesn't help that the CDC recently changed its vaccine schedule, which now goes against recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics. There's Facebook groups and there's friends and there's your physician's office and then you see the news and you don't know what to believe. She feels so strongly about this that she's helping a pro-vaccine advocacy group get off the ground. It's called South Carolina Families for Vaccines. I'm reading for the mom in the middle that's feeling lost and scared and doesn't really know what to do. She wants to encourage these parents to trust the science and to speak openly with their pediatrician about their fears. Morrow is especially passionate when it comes to combating misinformation about autism. One of her twins has autism, the other does not. Both are fully vaccinated. Marie Gideaux and PR News.