As of 2023, Berkshire, Franklin, and Hampden Counties collectively account for the highest rates of unvaccinated preschool and kindergarten-aged children in Massachusetts without a medical or religious exemption. These students fall into the “gap” of undocumented vaccination information, meaning that even if they have been immunized, their schools have no record of it. Berkshire county maintains the highest gap percentage (9.1%) of the whole state, which has a total gap rate of 4.5%.
The coastal counties of Nantucket, Dukes, and Barnstable comprise the next largest gap region, with Suffolk shortly following suit. Apart from Hampshire county, which has one of the lowest gap rates in the state, residents of Western Massachusetts appear to disproportionately drag their feet on immunizing their kids.
The numbers soon could grow: on Feb. 13, the Louisiana Department of Health announced it would stop “promoting” mass vaccination and instead encourage discussion of risks and benefits of immunizing between individuals and their providers. This news came just hours after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a staunch disbeliever in vaccines — was sworn in as the new secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
“When vaccination rates drop, you get worse outbreaks,” Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the Health Department for the City of New Orleans, told CNN. In anticipation of a troubling national trend against immunizing, pre-existing anti-vaccination sentiment in Western Massachusetts does not bode well for the future.
According to 2024 presidential voting patterns, the political makeup of Western Massachusetts is varied, a majority of towns voting blue while conservative hotspots are scattered throughout rural areas of Hampden and northmost Franklin. In geographical comparison, there is no discernible correlation between regional politics and higher pre-school/kindgergarten vaccination gaps.
However, vaccine skepticism in Western Mass has historical grounding in a former Pittsfield resident who, famously, allowed himself to be infected with smallpox in 1902 in the name of immunization resistance: Immanuel Pfeiffer. A bee in the bonnet of Boston health officials at the turn of the 20th century, Pfeiffer loudly and publicly rallied against mandated vaccinations, spreading his gospel from one end of the state to the other. A licensed doctor, Pfeiffer traversed the Berkshires from 1898-99 and reportedly “healed” patients of everything from alcoholism to tonsillitis.
Although his claims were “outrageous” to the medically keen, it was his life’s mission to disprove them; and by some miracle, survived his spell of smallpox. Though his name may be a blip in Massachusetts history, he is partially credited for the foundation of the anti-vaccination movement in the Northeast.
Some historic skepticisms of health mandates are indeed grounded in reason. Medical maltreatment was historically rampant in minority communities, and any health-related mandates could be understandably met with skepticism. To address these concerns, in the thick of the 2021 COVID-19 lockdown, former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick hosted a panel urging residents in his home county of Berkshire — specifically, black and brown residents — to get vaccinated despite community distrust.
Efforts to overcome these hesitations during the COVID pandemic were widespread, while a separate crowd was being fueled by the Trump Administration. Co-opting the famous reproductive rights slogan, anti-vaccination advocates rallied: “My body, my choice.”
Ultimately, rates of children in Western Massachusetts who do not meet immunization requirements already pose threats to the schools they attend and communities they participate in. Under the guidance of the new HHS secretary, that “gap” may very well widen.
“Things like vaccine fairs keep a child from having to miss school and a mother from having to miss work,” stated Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator from Louisiana. “That is the reality of today’s medicine. To say that cannot occur and that someone must wait for the next available appointment ignores that reality.”