> It's astounding how the more educated and affluent areas are the ones with the highest level of exemptions.

Not necessarily. There's also a tragedy of the commons here. If all children but mine are vaccinated, then my child is the safest, since I avoid both disease risk and vaccination risk.

So it can actually be rational to not vaccinate on an individual basis, depending on the state of vaccinations in the population. (On the other hand it is also rational to support a law forcing everything to vaccinate, since that fixes the tragedy by fiat).

What vaccination risk are you referring to, other than people with identified risk, immune deficiency, ec. There is no risk posed by vaccinations.

One other point, is while a local population might be vaccinated, you don't know who is coming in and out, i.e. going through town, one of those could be carrying the disease, so it's still irrational.

Isn't this because the affluent and educated have the time to read about it on the internet and in books? If you don't have the time to read the material, you no choice but to trust your doctor's recommendations.

Should you do so, and keep your objectivity, you'll see that the sensible option is to get all proposed 'mandatory' vaccines. The diseases prevented by them are nothing short of horrible.

I keep seeing articles that blame liberals for being anti-vax, but it's the Republicans who actually voted against this measure.

The trouble is, the purpose of the exemption supports traditionally "Republican" ideals of government not getting involved in their religious beliefs. However, there are large numbers of people taking advantage of the exception and they tend to fall into the more "crunchy granola" crowd typically aligned with liberal politics.