evidence: More parents are delaying their kids’ vaccines, and it’s alarming pediatricians [...] For years in the early 2000s, anti-vaccine sentiment was at an all-time high after the publication of a now-debunked and retracted study that falsely tied the MMR vaccine to autism. In December 2014, an unvaccinated 11-year-old was hospitalized with measles following a visit to Disneyland. Over the next few months, measles spread to 125 people across seven states. [...] But support for all school-based vaccine mandates has fallen; 28% now say that parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children, even if it causes health risks for others, up from 16% in October 2019. Among Republicans, the share has more than doubled, from 20% in 2019 to 42% in 2023.