Immigrant families' foreign vaccine records are rejected in the US

When a family immigrates to the US, their children's vaccination records from their home country are frequently not accepted by US schools or pediatricians, even when the child received equivalent vaccines on a comparable schedule. Foreign vaccine cards use different formats, languages, and sometimes different vaccine product names. So what? The child must be re-vaccinated with doses they already received, because the provider cannot verify the foreign record. So what? This is medically unnecessary, wastes doses, and subjects the child to avoidable pain and potential side effects from redundant immunization. So what? More critically, re-vaccination creates a barrier to school enrollment -- the child cannot attend school until the catch-up series is complete, which can take months for multi-dose vaccines. So what? The child misses weeks or months of school, falling behind academically at a critical transition point. The family, already navigating a new country, faces additional medical appointments and costs. So what? This creates a pattern where immigrant families associate vaccination with bureaucratic punishment rather than health protection, seeding hesitancy. Why does this persist? There is no international standard for vaccine record formats. US providers have no reliable way to verify foreign records, and liability concerns push them toward the conservative choice of re-vaccinating.