Why Montana Data is Missing From National Childhood Immunization Reports

This story is adapted from the MT Lowdown, a weekly newsletter digest containing original reporting and analysis published every Friday.

A reader pointed out earlier this week that national reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on kindergarten vaccination rates have shown what they considered a conspicuous omission over the past three years — a complete absence of data for the state of Montana. Finding their curiosity infectious, we dug in.

We confirmed that, shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Montana had been the only state in the country not to provi...