West Virginia health organizations are already expressing concerns over Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s newly-announced executive order to allow religious exemptions for vaccination requirements.
Statements of concern have come from the health department in West Virginia’s largest county, an organization of pediatricians in the state and an organization focused on rural healthcare.
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Morrisey said his administration will be announcing a process for people to declare their religious objections to vaccines, probably through an affidavit.
The executive order calls for the State Health Officer to establish a process for objections to compulsory school vaccination for families objecting on religious or conscientious grounds. Right now, West Virginia is without a State Health Officer.
The order indicates that state employees would not enforce school vaccination requirements on people objecting. “For purposes of this process, a writing signed by the objector shall be sufficient proof to establish the objection.”
Morrisey, speaking this week on MetroNews’ “Talkline,” said such exemptions would get West Virginia in line with other states.
“West Virginia has been a dramatic outlier to that, not even providing a religious exemption, a conscientious exemption, to people when so many states are doing that. Part of how we’re going to grow and change as a state is not being an outlier certain categories,” Morrisey said.
“I would say that there’s no scientific evidence which would demonstrate that this is going to have any negative health care benefits, but there’s absolutely immediate evidence that you’re taking away individuals’ religious liberty when you don’t provide for a basic exemption.”
State Senator Joey Garcia, D-Monongalia, questioned the legal underpinning of the executive order on vaccinations. He said when the public has a compelling interest such as curtailing the spread of disease, then individual views don’t necessarily trump that.
“When there’s a compelling government interest, there are philosophical differences. And there’s been a politicization, certainly within some groups about immunizations and sort of — get off my back. But there is a compelling interest in keeping people protected,” Garcia said on “Talkline.”
The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department issued a statement this week that mandatory childhood immunizations are critical for protecting children from diseases like measles, mumps, chicken pox, tetanus, polio, whooping cough, rubella and other diseases.
“Consistent with the American Academy of Pediatrics and many other health-care organizations working to protect our children, members of the Kanawha-Charleston Board of Health strongly recommend that parents and guardians immunize their children to protect them from these preventable diseases,” wrote members of the health department board.
The West Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics also put out a statement touting the state’s track record as a national leader in childhood immunization rates because of strong school immunization policies.
The organization described its longstanding position to oppose the expansion of non-medical vaccine exemptions.
“Weakening these policies will have consequences for our ability to protect communities from infectious diseases. Actions that weaken our immunization policies in West Virginia harm our state as a whole and will increase the risk of West Virginia children contracting vaccine-preventable disease,” the organization stated.
West Virginia’s Center for Rural Health Development said the state should actually be considered a leader when it comes to school immunization requirements. “In fact, in response to measles outbreaks, four other states modeled their immunization policies after West Virginia’s,” the center stated.
Elaine Darling, director of programs for the organization, said the Legislature has never passed a bill to allow nonmedical exemptions to vaccination requirements. She noted that HB5105 which passed last year, would have allowed private schools to decide if they have immunization requirements, but it did not allow nonmedical exemptions.
“By choosing not to allow nonmedical (religious, conscientious objection, moral, etc.) exemptions the legislators have saved lives, and we applaud them for that,” Darling said for the Center for Rural Health Development.
“Given that this Executive Order will impact the health and safety of children in our state, it is our strong hope that the governor will engage West Virginia healthcare and public health leaders, parents (particularly parents of children who are immunocompromised), school nurses, and childcare facility personnel to review and weigh in on the nonmedical exemption plan.”