California parents who do not want to vaccinate their children seem to be increasingly opting for homeschooling, according to The Los Angeles Times.
California passed one of the strictest vaccine laws in the country in 2015. It bans religious and philosophical exemptions and requires that all children be vaccinated unless they have a physician's note indicating they have a medical reason not to do so. The law only applies to children attending traditional schools, however, which gives parents a loophole if they homeschool their children.
The number of kindergartners who were both homeschooled and unvaccinated quadrupled over the past three years, according to a Times analysis of state data. It is unclear whether parents are only homeschooling their children to avoid vaccinations, or if those who choose to homeschool for separate reasons are also less likely to vaccinate their children.
Regardless of the reason, many homeschooled children participate in programs that meet several times per week with other children, which increases the risk of a potential outbreak of vaccine-preventable diseases, according to James Cherry, MD, an expert on pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California, Los Angeles.