In West Virginia, we often find ourselves trailing the rest of the nation in many categories. We are frequently at or near the bottom in health outcomes.
When we find ourselves at the bottom it is dispiriting, but here is a stat West Virginia can be proud of: West Virginia’s school-aged children have one of the highest routine immunization rates and, as a result, very low rates of vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, polio and whooping cough.
The primary reason for these successes is that West Virginia is one of just five states that allows only medical exemptions from school immunization requirements. Most other states allow for broader exemptions, such as religious objections.
But now that may be changing. The House of Delegates on Monday, by a 57-41 vote, passed HB 5105 making it easy for parents to ignore those required vaccinations for their children. The bill now goes to the Senate.
The bill allows private and parochial schools to opt out of the vaccine requirement. The exemption also extends to any child in a public school whose parents or guardian present a letter simply stating an objection for “religious reasons.” The bill started as a simple exemption for public school students engaged in virtual learning at home, but it was continually expanded to include potentially thousands of students.
There is a lot wrong with this bill.
The freedom to exercise one’s religion is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution, but like all freedoms, it has limitations, especially where a compelling state interest applies. For example, all states require safety seats in vehicles for infants. Under the logic of the West Virginia bill, lawmakers could pass a law exempting children from being buckled in simply by stating “religious reasons.”
The simple “religious reasons” language is vague. There is no provision in the bill to determine whether the parent or guardian has legitimate religious concerns. What is to prevent parents from just stating a religious reason when in fact their objection is based on something they saw on the Internet or heard from a friend?
Nationally, more parents are opting out of vaccinations for their children, and we are beginning to see the consequences. For example, cases of measles, which had been 99 percent eradicated because of school-based vaccines, have popped up in more than a dozen states in recent months. The most serious outbreak is in Florida, where at least eight cases have been reported, six at one elementary school.
Measles is serious. According to the Centers for Disease Control, prior to the development of the vaccine in 1963, an estimated three to four million people in this country, mostly children, got the disease every year. “An estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 suffered encephalitis from measles.”
Under current West Virginia law, parents still have options if they do not want their children to have compulsory immunizations. They can request an exemption from a physician claiming a specific health reason why the shots would be harmful because of the child’s physical condition. That is a reasonable fact-based option.
The consensus of the medical community is that vaccines are among the greatest health care advances in the last century. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, said “The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.”
More has been done over the years to improve the efficacy of vaccines and to develop more immunization techniques that protect and preserve life, especially among children. West Virginia families have been the beneficiaries of those advancements, and our state is a national leader on this front.
Don’t turn back now.