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Now, states that have suffered from epidemics are attacking these exemptions. In recent weeks, lawmakers from the states of New Jersey, New York, Iowa, Maine and Vermont have proposed eliminating religious exemptions for vaccines. A representative of the state of Washington proposed to strengthen the religious exemption of the state while removing a separate law allowing a personal or philosophical exemption from vaccination.
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.
High percentages of vaccinated children lead to "collective immunity", which helps prevent the spread of contagious diseases. But some doctors worry that eliminating state religious exemptions does not sufficiently reduce the risk of epidemics linked to geographical groups of parents who decide not to vaccinate their children.
This is partly because only a very small percentage of parents who choose not to use vaccines for their children do so for religious reasons, according to Daniel Salmon, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Bloomberg 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 parents use 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 to vaccinate after a measles outbreak in 2014.) "Most people who have concerns are not ideologically opposed to vaccines, they do not trust science, they have been misinformed, or they hold 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 children of maternal age 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 am opposed to any vaccine administered to my child." This exemption does not apply in the event of a child being vaccinated. emergency or outbreak of disease. " District parents should write to the school head to let them know that the vaccination would violate their 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 use state religious exemptions, even if they do not necessarily have religious objection, said Peter Hotez, immunization promoter and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at 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 this as a significant problem."
Tara McMillan, 40, has a notarized exception in her records in the event of an outbreak, when she may need to prove that she does not have her four children home schooled in Woodbridge, Virginia, vaccinated. twenty 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 thinks that her son's autism, diagnosed at the age of 3, is linked to the vaccines that he received when he was a baby. (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 circles.) McMillan stated that she was trying to obtain a medical exemption. 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 it's trying to take away what God has already given us," said McMillan, who visits an independent fundamental 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 come in. It's like the Bible verse – 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.
The type of exemption that parents use to evade immunization is not as important as the state process for obtaining one, said Saad Omer, professor of global health, epidemiology and of pediatrics at Emory University.
"What often makes the difference is how easy it is to get an exemption," he said. In some states, he noted, it's much easier for a parent to check a box to qualify for an exemption than to spend time in the waiting room of a pediatrician. .
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 get rid of all the 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. "
This article was written by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, a Washington Post reporter.
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