The number of kindergarten students in Missouri who are not vaccinated continues to grow.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said roughly 9% of all public school kindergarteners in the state did not get the MMR shot to protect against measles, mumps and rubella or the polio vaccine in the 2023-2024 school year. That's down about 5% compared to the 2019-2020, school year.

St. Louis-area health experts attributed the drop to a variety of reasons, including vaccine weariness and autism misinformation. Dr. Fred Buckhold is a general internist with SSM Health-St Louis University Hospital.

"(I'm) frustrated by the fraud, as I've told you before," he told KMOX Radio. "The autism association with vaccines is fraudulent research. There's just no other way to say it."

Dr. Buckhold also said he's seeing this weariness and skepticism in adults too, with many simply saying they've had enough with COVID and flu shots.

About 85% of private school students in Missouri got the MMR vaccine in the last school year.