Silicon Valley Techies Aren't Vaccinating Their Kids

Perhaps it's the technology that makes people assume Silicon Valley workers are logical and thrive on science -- but some tech company daycare facilities show that less than half of the children are vaccinated from childhood disease like measles, a report announced.

Wired conducted an investigation of these childcare facilities and found that those that receive vaccines varied greatly, from near 100 percent at Oracle's child care to less than 50 percent at one Google facility and at Pixar.

This should be alarming since about 15 years ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said measles was essentially neutralized, and now it's had a resurgence with a recent spate of 121 infected from encounters at Disneyland. Most of the new cases are in California where parents are allowed to forgo childhood immunizations with a "personal belief exemption."

For "herd immunity," the measles vaccination level has to be about 92 percent, but many of the tech firms -- including Cisco, Yahoo, IBM and Emeryville-based Pixar were much lower.

The data, supplied by the state's Department of Public Health, was deemed out-of-date by both Google and Pixar, who said their vaccination levels are much higher. The one Google facility which had a 49 percent vaccination rate is closer to 85 percent, a Google spokesperson said. Pixar had its parents update their children's vaccination records and has increased its vaccination rate to 98 percent after the Wired report came out. 

"In response to the reports on the vaccination rates, we requested parents update their children’s records promptly," a Pixar spokesperson said.

Those parents using the personal belief exemption now may find it disappearing in the future as state legislators are trying to temper or eliminate the loophole.

In other words, if you want your child to be safe from the measles or other childhood diseases, they should be vaccinated.

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