States Require Vaccines for Middle Schoolers

By Jessica Portner

A trip to the doctor's office for a series of vaccines used to be a ritual that only babies and toddlers endured before entering school for the first time.

But thousands of middle school students will soon be feeling the sting, too. Several states have recently adopted policies requiring older students to get immunized before heading back to class.

Florida became the latest state to act when health officials adopted a regulation last month that requires all 7th graders to get a series of inoculations--a second dose of the measles vaccine, a series of three hepatitis B shots, and a tetanus-diphtheria booster--by the time they...