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More Bonner County kids are unvaccinated than nearly anywhere else in the country mostly because Idaho allows non-medical exemptions due to personal beliefs. This puts children at risk for epidemics of measles, whooping cough and other infectious diseases.

Idaho has eight of the top 10 counties with the highest exemption rates in the country. Bonner County has a NME rate of 19.65 percent, the second highest in the nation. Kootenai County had 14.91 percent (eighth highest) and Boundary County at 14.61 percent (ninth highest.)

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases on Earth, spreading when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Once common in the United States, it was eliminated nationally in 2000, but has made a comeback, mostly because of the growing number of people who refuse to vaccinate their children. Measles is so contagious that at least 95 percent of people need to be vaccinated to protect the community, experts say. Yet only 80 percent of children entering kindergarten in Bonner County have received the MMR vaccine. An unvaccinated child is 35 times as likely to contract measles as a vaccinated youngster, studies have shown. Among severe complications of measles, as many as 1 of every 20 children will develop pneumonia — the most common cause of death from measles in young children. And about 1 of every 1,000 children will develop encephalitis that can lead to convulsions, deafness and intellectual disability.

Protect your children and our community, vaccinate before the outbreak.

SCOTT DUNN, M.D.

Sandpoint