Tag: polio

  • Examining Marblehead school vaccine rates

    As controversy over childhood vaccinations rages nationwide, student immunization rates in Marblehead have remained steady over the past three years, with most schools reporting 90% or more of pupils have gotten all vaccines required by state law.

    Dr. Thomas Massaro, a retired pediatrician and the chair of the town’s Board of Health, said the community’s demographics likely play a key role in maintaining consistent vaccination rates.

    “Massachusetts is a pretty progressive state, and Marblehead is consistent with that,” he said. “About 77% of residents have at least one bachelor’s degree, and it’s an affluent community. People understand the benefits of vaccines, they judge them, and they decide to go ahead.”

    Statewide, the number of students with all vaccines required for school averages 94.4% for kindergarten students and 90.7% for grade 7 students. Pupils in some parts of Massachusetts are getting vaccinated less and requesting more exemptions in recent years, Department of Public Health data shows. Vaccination rates have been decreasing nationally since the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for kindergartners and as more parents question their effectiveness, though Massachusetts was recently rated by one national study as the state with the highest vaccine rates for all residents.

    State and local governments have the authority to impose vaccine requirements for students in their communities, though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has traditionally recommended a vaccine schedule for those attending school. The CDC announced this month it was dropping recommendations that school-age children get six vaccines previously encouraged for students, including those aimed at preventing respiratory infections, Hepatitis A and B, and meningitis. Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, immediately announced students in Massachusetts would still be required to get all vaccines mandated by state law, which include some of those eliminated by the CDC.

    Massachusetts children, from those attending day care and pre-school programs through those attending college in the commonwealth, are required to get a slate of vaccines as they progress through grades, including those preventing chickenpox, polio, diphtheria and measles, among others.

    In December, state officials issued an alert about potential measles exposure in Massachusetts after an out-of-state visitor contracted the disease. Since 2020, there has been only one case of a Massachusetts resident getting the measles, state records show.   

    But for the first time in three decades, the number of measles cases in the U.S. rose to over 2,000 last year, according to the CDC. All 50 states require vaccinations for students, though Republican Florida lawmakers, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, have been battling to limit vaccine requirements. 

    Each year, the Massachusetts DPH surveys all day care, pre-school and kindergarten programs and middle and high schools, to gather immunization data on those in seventh and 12th grade.  Those grade levels are targeted to align with the required state-required vaccines for children of those ages. 

    Students can request a medical exemption from the vaccines if certified by their physician or a state can waive exemptions if mandated immunizations conflict with a student’s religious beliefs. Like the rest of the nation, medical and religious student vaccine exemption rates in Massachusetts have risen in the past four years, according to data shows. 

    In Marblehead, exemption rates across all programs and schools have hovered between 0% and 6% at the highest since 2022, DPH data shows. A bill pending in the Massachusetts legislature would remove the ability for a student to obtain religious exemptions, mirroring New York, Maine and Connecticut and California, which have eliminated them. 

    Massaro said the pandemic undermined public trust in government across age groups.

    “One of the long-term negative consequences of the pandemic was a loss of faith and trust in public health,” he said. “Vaccines are the prime face of public health to young people. If the pandemic caused overall questions about whether they can trust the CDC or FDA, then it’s not surprising there’s been a slight diminution.” 

    Massaro also warned that misinformation circulating at the federal level may further undermine confidence. 

    “We’re subject to a much bigger decline with all the misleading information coming out of (the U.S. Department of) Health and Human Services right now,” he said.

    Polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation show widening partisan divides over support for routine childhood vaccinations. At the same time, states have begun to diverge significantly in how they regulate school immunization requirements. New York and California eliminated nonmedical exemptions after large measles outbreaks in the past decade. Other states have moved in the opposite direction. Idaho, Oklahoma and Utah have expanded or clarified access to exemptions, reflecting the broader national debate. 

    “It is a balance between the individual and the community,” Massaro said. “People need to trust the systems that protect them.”

  • Two worlds on the same street: How a violin bridges Beacon Hill with the unhoused community 

    In the small, dimly-lit community center turned chamber hall on 74 Joy St., Jennifer Stevens is brought back to her grandparents’ living room. There, she would watch the piano strings dance as her great uncle played. Sometimes she sat beneath the baby grand, enveloped in the amplified acoustics of the instrument’s underbelly. 

    “That was my playground,” she said. 

    The benefit concert held on Oct. 15 for Shelter Music Boston, performed by the organization’s artistic director and internationally-acclaimed violinist, Adrian Anantawan, aimed to provide Stevens’ experience to the thousands of homeless people living just outside the cozy confines of Beacon Hill. 

    More than 5,500 people live without shelter in Boston, according to the 2025 U.S. census.

    “For many people, connecting them to music, particularly classical music, brings them back to a simpler time, when life was less complicated,” said Mark Lippolt, who works for the organization’s development committee. 

    Now celebrating its 15th anniversary, Shelter Music Boston will perform more than 100 free concerts this year at shelters for homeless people, those recovering from substance abuse, or fleeing domestic violence. 

    “Classical music unfortunately can be seen as something that’s very ivory tower, and only for people who can afford it,” said violinist Anantawan, who was born without a right hand. Whether life’s challenges stem from a disability or other circumstances, the Canadian musician says the stigma is the same.

    “That’s always been a big mission for me,” Anantawan said, “to be able to find ways that this particular art form can be accessible and inclusive for as many people as possible, and to try to remove the stigma of what or who this music is for.”

    At 10 years old, Anantawan’s elementary school required students to pick up the recorder. With only five fingers, that simply wasn’t an option, and he and his parents began searching for a more suitable instrument. Anantawan found his calling on a Sesame Street episode featuring violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman. It was the first time the aspiring musician saw someone on TV who somewhat resembled him.

    “He had polio, a disability as well, but played the instrument beautifully,” Anantawan said. He told his parents he’d made his choice.

    With the aid of a prosthetic adapted to hold his bow, Anantawan has now played all around the world, from the White House to the Athens and Vancouver Olympics. He has performed for Pope John Paul II, the late Christopher Reeve and the Dalai Lama. 

    Amidst his piling accolades, Anantawan partnered with a hospital and after-school program to make chamber music accessible to children with disabilities. Now he says he hopes to bring his local, disadvantaged community the same sense of fulfillment he found through the violin. 

    When Shelter Music Boston plays for homeless communities, Anantawan said musicians are not only performing, they are pronouncing the audience worthy of beautiful music.

    The night of the concert in Beacon Hill, Anantawan and his piano accompanist, Jennifer Hsiao, played a lullaby by the Indian American composer, Reena Esmail. Some audience members closed their eyes, others swayed to the melody. When the song ended, Anantawan opened the floor to a discussion, and attendees shared feelings evoked by the performance. 

    In a neighborhood where the average home value exceeds $1 million, Anantawan said that night’s conversation reminded him of audience reactions at shelters. 

    “All of us come from a parent or a family, and our hope is that the music that we continue to play really resonates with you as much as someone in a shelter,” Anantawan said to the audience. 

    Even though classical music was first composed for kings and queens, he said, “they were getting at very human elements that can be accessible to any of us.”

    Anantawan said he hopes the opportunities afforded by affluence isn’t lost on Beacon Hill’s residents. “What do we do to be able to make sense of that privilege?” he asks. “And what do you do as responsible members of the community to be able to uplift and to see all people as whole people?”

    The evening closed with a three-part sonata by the French composer Claude Debussy, a piece that blends a disparate array of styles and techniques. The bow drew out the ethereal first act, abruptly followed by the sinister, dance-like rhythms of the second. The violinist and accompanist suspend the musical tension for more than 10 minutes before taking a breath in sync, releasing the final act’s rapid triumph. 

    “You’re really getting a sense of the work that we do here,” Antawan said, addressing the audience. “Which is, essentially, the human universal work of just making spaces beautiful and making our worlds as beautiful as we can through this power of art and music.”