At 23, Elisabeth Marnik walked into a doctor's office and asked for something adults almost never request: every childhood vaccine she had missed. She had never received a single one. Her physician did not stock pediatric immunizations, so she worked through the schedule at a travel clinic instead.
Marnik, now 37 and holding a doctorate in immunology, told that story in a STAT profile published this week. It landed two days after federal figures showed school vaccine exemptions climbing to another record, and it makes the argument that runs counter to the instinct of many people who support vaccination: shaming and excluding doubters will not move them.
The Flat Tire That Changed Her Mind
Marnik grew up in Thomaston, Connecticut, in a household organized around an evangelical church in nearby Waterbury. She and her brother were pulled out of elementary school, homeschooled informally for three years, and taught that science contradicted scripture.
Her mother, Teresa Ryan, had come across a pamphlet decades earlier that described a healthy child who, after a series of vaccinations, cried uncontrollably, ran a high fever, and went limp. When she brought that worry to the family doctor, he told her only that children must follow an immunization schedule. Nothing else was offered, and Ryan decided her two children would not get the shots.
Marnik eventually persuaded her mother to enroll her in public school for her junior year of high school. She met chemistry there, went on to Central Connecticut State University, and found her way into a research lab.
Near the end of her junior year of college, she sat sobbing in a campus building lobby. She had been commuting 40 minutes each way in a failing car that her mother and brother depended on for every errand. She had a job at a dentist's office and graduate school applications to finish. She had spent much of the previous night driving around, thinking about quitting. Then she found a flat tire.
Three professors walked out to the parking garage and hacked at the rusted lug nuts themselves. Hours earlier, her pastor's wife had turned down her plea for a place to stay. Marnik has described watching those two facts sit side by side as the moment something shifted.
Why She Says Ten Minutes Is Not Enough
The argument Marnik now makes rests on how long her own change took. It was not a debate she lost. It was four years of conversations with professors and friends who kept talking to her.
At a June panel discussion at a Boston theater, she said people routinely tell her that engaging with those they disagree with is a waste of time. When she asks what they actually tried, the answer is usually a single conversation lasting five or ten minutes that failed to change anyone's mind. That, she argues, was never going to be enough.
Since February, she has served as executive director of The Evidence Collective, a group of clinicians and scientists that produces briefs on current science topics and convenes online creators who reach general audiences. One of her sessions paired scientist mothers with parenting influencers. Another paired scientists with religious leaders, who developed a faith-based pamphlet encouraging measles vaccination.
Her position is not that requirements should disappear. She has argued that empathy and mandates can coexist, and she says people can still be required to vaccinate to attend school, work in health care, or join the military. What she disputes is the assumption underlying much of the online argument: that people who reject vaccines already have good information and are choosing to ignore it. Her mother, she said, "only ever finished eighth grade," asked one provider, and had no realistic way to seek a second opinion.
This is one communicator's position drawn largely from her own history, not a settled finding of communication science. Researchers who study vaccine policy and health messaging told STAT that her contribution is valuable precisely because she presents her story as her story rather than a universal template.
The Numbers She Is Arguing Into
The backdrop has worsened. The CDC has posted kindergarten vaccination data showing that coverage fell for every routinely reported vaccine during the 2025 to 2026 school year. Exemptions from one or more vaccines rose to 4.2 percent from 3.6 percent, a fourth consecutive record, covering roughly 155,000 children. Exemptions increased in 41 states and Washington, D.C., and 24 states now report rates above 5 percent.
Coverage ranged from 92 percent for the diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis vaccine to 92.4 percent for measles, mumps, rubella, and polio. The agency estimates that about 280,000 kindergartners attended school without documentation of completing the two-dose MMR series. The CDC has long cited 95 percent two-dose measles coverage as the threshold that keeps a single introduction from becoming an outbreak.
Marnik's own mother still declines flu and COVID-19 vaccinations. She has acknowledged the value of the measles vaccine and said she would accept shots after a bite from a rabid animal or a step on a rusty nail. When Marnik's second child was born, she asked her mother to either vaccinate or wear a mask around the baby, and her mother chose to wear a mask. Marnik calls that progress.
What Adults Who Missed Shots Actually Do
Adults who were never vaccinated or who have no records are not out of options, and the process Marnik went through is documented. The CDC publishes an adult immunization schedule by age and condition, along with catch-up guidance covering minimum intervals between doses for people who start late or fall behind.
Catch-up vaccination is a clinical decision that depends on age, medical history, pregnancy status, immune status, and available documentation. Anyone in that situation should work it out with a clinician rather than assembling a schedule on their own. General practices for adults do not always stock every pediatric vaccine, which is how Marnik ended up at a travel clinic in the first place.
Key Questions Answered
Who is Elisabeth Marnik?
An immunologist and science communicator who grew up entirely unvaccinated in an evangelical household in Connecticut, received all her childhood vaccines at 23, and now leads The Evidence Collective.
What is she actually arguing?
That shaming and short confrontations do not move vaccine-hesitant people, and that many of them were never given good information in the first place. She supports vaccine requirements while arguing that slower persuasion has to run alongside them.
Is this backed by communication research?
Her position is widely shared among public health communicators, but the STAT account is a personal narrative and a professional argument rather than a controlled study. Treat it as one practitioner's position.
What do the latest CDC numbers show?
Kindergarten exemptions rose to 4.2 percent for 2025 to 2026, up from 3.6 percent, covering about 155,000 children. Coverage declined for every reported vaccine, and MMR coverage sits at 92.4 percent.
Can an unvaccinated adult catch up?
Yes. The CDC maintains an adult schedule and catch-up guidance with minimum dosing intervals. The specifics depend on age, health status, and medical records, so they need to be worked out with a clinician.
Did Marnik change her own mother's mind?
Not on most vaccines. Her mother still declines flu and COVID-19 shots but has acknowledged the value of the measles vaccine and agreed to wear a mask around a newborn.
