Kentucky Judge Takes Side With Ministry Of Health And Says An Unvaccinated Teen Can not Play School Basketball

A Kentucky judge sided with a public health agency against an unvaccinated teenager who had filed a lawsuit to try to return to his school's basketball team.

Judge James R. Schrand of the Boone County Circuit confirmed the temporary ban on the facility prohibiting unvaccinated students from attending school or participating in extracurricular activities, according to Cincinnati Enquirer.

This decision follows a lawsuit filed by the family of Jerome Kunkel, who claimed that the Northern Kentucky Department of Health discriminated against their Christian convictions by banning the student from continuing. Go to school and basketball because he had not received a vaccine against chicken pox.

During a chicken pox epidemic that affected more than 30 students last month, the health department sent a letter to the families of the Notre Dame Academy of the Sacred Heart / Assumption in Walton, in Kentucky, stating that unvaccinated students can not go to school or participate in activities such as sports.

Like schools in many other states, the Assumption Academy normally allows for vaccine exemptions for religious beliefs, but the judge's ruling on Tuesday confirms the right of the health department to impose bans on epidemic.

Kunkel, a senior and college basketball player, told Enquirer, through his lawyer, that he was "devastated" by the decision.

His lawyer, Christopher Wiest, said in court that a ban on unvaccinated students would not be effective in stopping the spread of chickenpox because most students attend mass together.

Wiest told the newspaper that more than two dozen other unvaccinated students were out of school and had joined Kunkel's legal initiative.

The Ministry of Health welcomed the decision, noting that it "underscores the critical need of public health departments to maintain the safety of the entire community, and in particular of our community members most exposed to the disastrous consequences of a serious, infectious disease such as chickenpox, remains unchanged and uncontrolled. "