The Quad Cities has been home to the study of chiropractics, as its origin is from a clinic located in Davenport, Iowa. Chiropractic, in its original definition, proves to be a form of holistic medicine–which is medicine that addresses or considers the person as a whole. Holistic medicine also goes against vaccinations as many children who are unvaccinated often belong to chiropractor families.
Because of the Quad Cities high population of chiropractors and the slow rise of unvaccinated children, how dangerous is it to truly live here? Statistics for the 2017/18 school year have shown in the Pleasant Valley High School District alone, at least 96.45% of its students are vaccinated, whereas we see a lower rate in the Bettendorf School District–approximately 95.33% are vaccinated. Even lower rates are shown in more rural areas, such as the AGWSR Community School District, a school near Cedar Falls, with a rate of only 81.23% of students being vaccinated.
Mrs. Cinadr, a nurse here at Pleasant Valley High School, described the mindset of those with an holistic medicine belief. “They tend to rely on the people around them to not carry any of those illnesses, a sort of herd like mindset. It’s very dangerous and frightening and it’s reasons like these that we are starting to see outbreaks of diseases that have been long eradicated–such as measles.”
In the 2000’s, the United States had declared that measles was officially eradicated. This was proven to be done by a highly effective vaccination that was given and showcased America’s improvement in modern medicine. However, in 2017 alone there was a large outbreak of measles in Minnesota. Primarily within the Somali-American community, which had previously been shown to have high vaccination rates, had not been vaccinated for measles and accounted for nearly 85% of the sudden outbreak.
The Quad Cities doesn’t have much to worry about, as stated before many of its school districts have a vaccination rate of at least 90% or above, with few exceptions being made in rural areas. In the Scott County alone for the 2015-16 school year, about 2.4% of children that were enrolled are unvaccinated. 713 students in total, with 646 of them being for religious reasons.
Iowa is starting to get stricter with their immunization requirements. They’ve introduced new required vaccinations such as the meningococcal vaccine, which fights any disease or infection caused by neisseria meningitidis. Additionally, Iowa is starting to make it more difficult for students to receive a religious exemption.
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