Current State of the Vaccine Wars

Guest: Michael Kinch, PhD, Associate Vice Chancellor and Director, Washington University’s Center for Research Innovation in Business, Professor, Radiation Oncology This is the season of shots – vaccines and booster shots for school kids, flu shots for all of us. Well, not all of us, because child vaccination rates for major disease like polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria and whooping cough have been declining in the US in recent years.  Why, when these vaccines are widely credited with eliminating devastating diseases in the US, are educated, and often wealthy, parents opting not to get their kids vaccinated?