Some anti-vaccination parents cite religious exemptions. The measles epidemics could change that.

Immunization advocates and anti-vaccination activists are looking to see if some states will follow California, which has shed the religious and personal immunization exemptions after a Disneyland measles outbreak that began in 2014. The only students who can do without vaccinations without a doctor's signature are those who are educated at home.

A high percentage of vaccinated children leads to "collective immunity", which helps prevent the spread of contagious diseases. Some doctors fear, however, that the elimination of religious exemptions granted by states may not sufficiently reduce the risk of epidemics linked to geographical groups of parents who decide not to vaccinate their children.

This is partly because very few parents who choose not to use vaccines for their children do so for religious reasons. According to Dr. Daniel Salmon, a professor at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety. Vaccine exemptions have gradually increased over the last three years to reach an average of 2.2% of kindergarten children in all states. It is unclear whether and how many religious exemptions have increased at the national level, but researchers such as Salmon say that more and more parents are using personal exemptions.

"People think that the Amish are the classic group that does not want to vaccinate," he said. (However, many Amish from Ohio started vaccinating after a measles outbreak in that country in 2014.) "Most people who have concerns are not ideologically opposed to vaccines. They simply do not trust science, they have been misinformed or they have different values. "

Almost all states have provided religious exemptions for parents who wish not to vaccinate their children (West Virginia and Mississippi, in addition to California, have not yet done so). West Virginia is considering a new proposal to add personal and religious exemptions.

Washington, which is one of the least religious states in the country, is one of 17 states that allow a personal or philosophical exemption from the vaccine, which means most people can choose not to participate. In 2018, only 0.3% of Washington families with preschool children used a religious exemption, while 3.7% of families used a personal exemption and 0.8% a medical exemption.

According to the Pew Research Center, many majorities of Americans belonging to all major religious groups believe that healthy children should be vaccinated to be able to go to school. Specialists believe that no major religious group defends vaccination on the basis of official doctrine. However, some people from different religious traditions think that vaccination goes against their religious beliefs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States experienced 17 measles outbreaks in 2018. Epidemics in New York and New Jersey occurred mainly among unvaccinated people in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities where many believe that vaccines are at the origin of diseases.

Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a group focused on issues of religious freedom, said that he had worked with clients who opposed vaccines originally manufactured from cells of tissue from aborted fetuses, which some religious institutions have addressed.

The Catholic Church has approved the use of vaccines – such as rubella vaccine – that can be developed from down-to-tissue cells from aborted fetuses. No fetal tissue has been added since the initial creation of cell lines for vaccine production. The Baptist Commission for Ethics in the South and Religious Freedom compares this use to the use of organs from a murdered person, claiming that such vaccines are justifiable.

Staver also stated that some of his clients had a general objection based on a biblical passage that says the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and do not want vaccines, some of which include small amounts of weak or dead germs to help the bodies to defend themselves infections.

Staver fears that some people who oppose vaccines because of their religion will be integrated with the rest of the anti-vaccination movement. The last time Staver's Freedom Council filed a lawsuit, he said, was in 2003-2004 on behalf of a seventh grade student in New York City. Child protection services wanted her out of her home and the authorities forbade her to go to school.

"They were firmly opposed and had reasons consistent with their faith rather than just checking the box," Staver told the child's parents. "It's different from," I just do not want to comply. "

Throughout the country, religious exemptions granted to parents vary from state to state. Maryland's parents sign a statement saying, "Because of my beliefs and authentic religious practices, I oppose any vaccine administered to my child. This derogation does not apply in case of emergency or outbreak of disease. District parents should write to the school head to let them know that the vaccination would violate his or her religious beliefs. And parents living in Virginia must sign a notarized form stating that the vaccination is in conflict with their religious beliefs and that they understand that their child could be excluded from school in the event of an outbreak.

Researchers believe that some parents resort to religious exemptions granted by states, even if they do not necessarily have religious objection, said Dr. Peter Hotez, promoter of immunization and dean of the National School of Medicine Tropical of Baylor College of Medicine.

"As the anti-vaccine movement gains strength and power, it could use the loophole on religious exemptions," he said. "For the moment, I do not see it as important as a problem."

Tara McMillan, 40, has a notarized exemption from her records in the event of an outbreak, while she may have to prove that she is not vaccinating her four home-schooled children in Woodbridge, Va. kilometers south of the district. . She said she stopped vaccinating her children when her 13-year-old son showed signs of reaction in 2008.

She believes that her son's autism, diagnosed at the age of 3, is linked to the vaccinations he received as a child. (Many people opposed to vaccines cite autism on the basis of a 1998 study that used forged data before retracting.The idea was largely rejected by overwhelming scientific evidence, but it persists in some settings.) McMillan said he wanted a medical waiver. is available in all 50 states, but could not have the form signed by a doctor.

"We must follow the religious path even though it is more medical," she said. "There is always a fear that [lawmakers will] try to sneak in something to remove the religious exemption.

Later, McMillan stated that she had begun to learn more about vaccines and had developed a general religious belief that was against them, in part because she had learned that some of them were made from aborted fetal cells.

"I think it's sacrilege because he's trying to take away what God has already given us," McMillan said., who goes to an independent basic Baptist church. "When we put vaccines in our body, it disrupts the system of your body. You put things in your body and bad things will happen. It's like the verse of the Bible: you reap what you sow. "

Hotez said that the biggest battleground for vaccine advocates is the states that benefit from personal exemptions, not just religious ones. States with both personal and religious exemptions have higher pertussis rates than states with only religious exemption.

Saad B. Omer, Professor of Global Health, Epidemiology and Pediatrics at Emory University, explains that the type of exemption used by parents to avoid vaccination is not as important as the process to obtain one..

"What often makes the difference is how easy it is to get an exemption," he said. In some states, he noted, it is much easier for a parent to check a box for an exemption than spending time in a pediatrician's waiting room.

State guidelines could be stricter if more documents were needed to obtain an exemption on the basis of conscientious objection, said Charles Haynes, founder of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Newseum.

"It may be politically easier to remove all exemptions than to adopt a more nuanced approach that continues to protect sincere conscientious claims," ​​he said. "Given that the vast majority of parents who oppose it do so for reasons that are not explicitly" religious ", the minority who refuses because of religious belief can be lost in the world. urgency to change the laws. "