![]() ![]() “Now that the personal exemptions are no longer available, they consider them religious exemptions,” Dr. If you take away parents’ ability to use personal exemptions, then religious exemptions will rise. He said the study confirms in New England what researchers have learned in California and other locations. William Schaffner, MD, is a professor of preventive medicine in the department of health policy and a professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. “This important work will help school vaccine exemption laws evolve in our rapidly changing society, ensuring they remain a cornerstone of public health for decades to come,” the study authors stated. The researchers don’t suggest abolishing religious exemptions, but say further research should be done on the personal level and look at what other exemptions are available and differentiate between religious and spiritual concerns. “Religious exemptions may be an increasingly problematic or outdated exemption category, and researchers and policy makers must work together to determine how best to balance a respect for religious liberty with the need to protect public health,” the Colorado researchers concluded in their research. They say this is evidenced in how exemption requests remained relatively the same geographically, but the stated reason changed with the laws. Researchers say this suggests parents are simply switching what box they check on the state forms to obtain the same outcome. The researchers noted that Vermont ranked second to last in all 50 states when it came to strong religious beliefs the year before the policy changed.īut researchers don’t think people are suddenly converting to religions that prevent them from vaccinating their children. In the following years, religious exemptions in the state went from 0.5 percent to 3.7 percent, or 7 times what they were when personal exemptions were available. It offered both kinds of exemptions, but in 2015 it became the first state to repeal its personal exemption. In other words, children were 4 times more likely to be unvaccinated because of their parents’ personal - not religious - beliefs. ![]() The Colorado-based team of pediatricians and public health researchers found that from 2011 to 2018, in the 15 states that allow both personal and religious exemptions, kindergarteners were one-fourth less likely to have parents who cited religious beliefs for not vaccinating their child. The new research on exemptions, published in the journal Pediatrics, involved analyzing CDC data for patterns - namely to see if state laws limiting the use of personal exemptions had any effect on the invocation of religious rights. That’s alarming to infectious disease experts because measles was declared eradicated from the United States in 2000.īut now, nearly 20 years later, the CDC says this year’s measles cases is the highest since 1992.Įxperts attribute the rise to growing numbers of unvaccinated kids with their parents typically grouped together in geographic location as well as around personal - or religious - beliefs. ![]() Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of October 3 there were 1,250 confirmed measles cases in 31 states, with the majority occurring in New York. The use of vaccine exemptions is of particular concern as the United States is coming out of a problematic year for vaccine preventable diseases, namely measles.Īccording to the U.S. Nonetheless, some of the larger outbreaks of vaccine preventable infections in recent years have occurred in communities united in, among other things, their religious beliefs. This is occurring even though few religions have stated objections to vaccinating children. There are only 15 states that allow those same exemptions for personal, moral, or other beliefs.Ī new study suggests that “problematic, outdated” religious exemptions to vaccines are on the rise because fewer parents can cite personal beliefs for why they’re not vaccinating their children. states that allow parents to use religious freedoms protected by the First Amendment to exempt their child from the current vaccine schedules and still attend school. ![]()
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