While it appears that the recent measles hysteria pushed a button that rocketed nearly all 50 states to introduce vaccine bills simultaneously, calling to restrict and/or remove vaccine exemptions for children, the plan has actually been evolving for a long time. The flurry of legislative actions is rooted in the Healthy People guidelines which began 35 years ago.
In 1976, Congress created The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) to coordinate disease prevention and health promotion efforts across the United States. Three years later, Surgeon General Julius B Richmond chronicled the state of health in America, then defined five quantitative goals for public health. The document came to be referred to as Healthy People. With the help of Assistant Surgeon General Michael McGinnis, the formal publication was released in 1979. In 1980, a companion piece written by the Institutes of Medicine – Promoting Health/Preventing Disease: Objectives for the Nation – set forth 226 specific, measurable health objectives. This was the action plan for the Healthy People goals. These two documents, considered to be “landmarks” in the history of public health, became Healthy People 1990.
Lofty goals were put forth for many areas of health, but some of the first directives for mass vaccination were established in Healthy People 1990. For example, one goal was to achieve at least a 60% influenza vaccination rate among high-risk populations. Another was to fully vaccinate all children with MMR, polio and DTP by two years of age.
The goals were meant to be national in scope. But 1980s were long before the age of instant internet communication and social media. Few of the objectives were met in the time span between 1980 and 1990. Therefore, planning the objectives for the next decade began in 1987, engaging broad-based input from public health officials across the country.
By the time Healthy People 2000 was released in 1990, more than 7,000 persons