Childhood vaccination rates continue to decline, and a former North Texas congressman and physician says parents should no longer assume the children sitting beside their own are protected from highly contagious diseases.
New federal data shows 92.4% of U.S. kindergarteners received the required measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine during the last school year. That's below the 95% vaccination level generally considered necessary to help prevent outbreaks. At the same time, the national vaccine exemption rate climbed from 3.6% to a record 4.2%.
Texas is moving even further in that direction, with the state's exemption rate increasing from 4.3% to 5.2%, according to Dr. Michael Burgess, a Republican who represented Texas' 26th Congressional District for 22 years before leaving office in January 2026. Burgess also practiced medicine as an obstetrician-gynecologist for more than two decades before serving in Congress. He said those numbers should change the calculation for parents deciding whether to vaccinate their children.
"The 95% is sort of calculated as the optimum amount to protect the largest number of children," Burgess said. "If your child is not vaccinated, the risk of encountering one of these illnesses is now higher than it has ever been before."
"When you send your child to school, don't assume that everyone else is protected from these illnesses," he said. "The likelihood of a child getting infected is extremely high unless they're protected."
The declining vaccination rate comes as the U.S. experiences its worst year for measles since 1991, with at least 2,370 cases reported.
"One of the things that worries me is there's a sense of complacency about some of these illnesses because no one's ever really dealt with them for the past two generations," Burgess said. "But if they're now coming back again, parents need to be aware of that."
"Parents need to be vigilant, and one of the ways you are vigilant is protecting your child from vaccine preventable illnesses."Former North Texas U.S. Rep. Dr. Michael Burgess
This issue is particularly relevant in Texas, where lawmakers have made it easier for parents to seek exemptions from school vaccination requirements. House Bill 1586, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2025, did not eliminate the state's vaccination requirements, but it did simplify the process for parents seeking conscientious exemptions. Other states have also taken steps to expand or streamline exemptions.
Burgess said vaccine skepticism was already familiar to him during his years representing a district anchored in Denton County.
"I represented a part of the world where vaccine hesitancy is kind of baked in," Burgess said of North Texas. "That's not unusual. It did get worse during COVID."
He said the pandemic prompted some people to question vaccines and other medical practices that had previously been considered routine.
Texas has already experienced the consequences of renewed measles transmission, including a major outbreak in West Texas. Burgess acknowledged the lower vaccination rate was likely a contributing factor and said parents should focus on protecting children from diseases that vaccines can prevent.
"Parents need to be vigilant, and one of the ways you are vigilant is protecting your child from vaccine preventable illnesses," Burgess said. "Let's not go back to the 1800s where these illnesses just simply ran rampant through our populations."
The decline in vaccination rates and expansion of exemptions come despite polling that suggests Americans across the political spectrum support vaccines and access to them.
A bipartisan national poll commissioned by the Partnership to Fight Infectious Disease found 89% of the 1,013 respondents consider vaccines essential for public health. That sentiment is the same for about 82% of Republicans, 89% of independents, and 97% of Democrats surveyed between Jan. 27-30.
At the same time, 78% said they believe political influence is affecting scientific decision-making in vaccine policy, and 60% expressed concern that changes or confusion surrounding federal recommendations could make it harder for people who want vaccines to get them.
Burgess pointed out an important distinction in the increasingly political debate over vaccines. School vaccination requirements are primarily a matter of state policy, not a federal mandate.
"There is a lot of conflicting information out there," Burgess said. "People need to remember this, that the MMR vaccine, is not administered under a federal mandate. States require vaccinations prior to attending elementary schools, and it will remain at a state level."
Ron Corning is one of the hosts of KERA's NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
Copyright 2026 KERA News
