In recent years, religious freedom has been used to undermine public schools and public health. This trend damages communities and endangers children. In the following post, an authority praises Connecticut for eliminating the religious exemption for vaccination.
Dr. Paul Offit is a pediatrician who specializes in infectious diseases and vaccines. He is currently the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He writes a blog where he warns about the dangers of refusing to vaccinate against diseases.
On February 13, 2024, National Geographic published a book I wrote called, TELL ME WHEN IT’S OVER: AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO DECIPHERING COVID MYTHS AND NAVIGATING OUR POST-PANDEMIC WORLD. For the past few months, I have been writing about various issues discussed in that book.
Between January 2020 and March 2024, the CDC reported 338 cases of measles in 30 US states and jurisdictions. These outbreaks were consistent with a CDC survey showing that more parents are choosing non-medical vaccine exemptions, such as religious or philosophical exemptions, for their school children. Connecticut, however, is standing up to those who, in the name of religious freedoms, are putting children at unnecessary risk.
In 2000, the United States eliminated measles, the most contagious of the vaccine-preventable diseases. Success centered on the enforcement of school vaccine mandates that have existed in all 50 states since 1981. Unfortunately, during the past few years, legislative efforts by anti-vaccine groups have made it easier to opt out of vaccines for non-medical reasons. As a consequence, immunization rates among school children have dropped and measles has come back.
In Connecticut, on the other hand, immunization rates have risen for two straight years, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. During the 2022-2023 school year, more than 97 percent of Connecticut kindergartners were vaccinated against measles, up from 95.7 percent the year before and 95.3 percent the year before that. Why? The answer can be found in a 2021 law that eliminated the state’s religious exemption to vaccination.
Immunization rates of 95 percent or higher are required to provide herd immunity against measles. When rates drop, which is true in many states that now offer either religious or philosophical exemptions, measles comes back. The most dramatic example being an outbreak in Philadelphia in 1991 that centered on two fundamentalist churches that refused vaccines. During a three-month period, measles virus infected 1,400 people in the city and killed nine. All the deaths were in young children.
On its face, the phrase “religious exemptions to vaccination” is a contradiction in terms. All religions teach us to care about our children and our families and our neighbors. Choosing to put our children and those with whom they come in contact at risk is the opposite of a religious act. Further, about 9 million people in the United States, because they are on immune suppressive therapies for their cancers or transplants or autoimmune diseases, can’t be vaccinated. They depend on those around them for protection. Do we have a responsibility to love our neighbor?
Amy Pisani, a Connecticut resident, and head of the national group Vaccinate Your Family, praised the hard work required to counter the efforts of anti-vaccine groups to overturn vaccine mandates. “From the top down, we have incredibly supportive legislators,” said Pisani. “And when you have government agencies that are supportive at that level, it allows our public health officials to do their job.” As measles cases rise this year, and will no doubt return next winter, parents in Connecticut can feel more comfortable that state health officials and legislators have their backs.
Standing in stark contrast to efforts to protect children in Connecticut are those in Mississippi. In July 2023, Mississippi, which had up to that point only offered medical exemptions, became the most recent state to offer a religious exemption to vaccination. More than 2,000 parents immediately chose to exempt their children. The effort was not spearheaded by a religious group, but rather a virulent anti-vaccine group called Informed Consent Action Network. The lawyer who headed that effort paradoxically declared, “Freedom wins again.” Freedom to catch and transmit potentially deadly infections. Hardly a victory for children.
Vaccine exemptions on religious grounds are reckless public policy. They put the majority of the public at risk and allow potentially infected people to spread disease among the populace at large. During Covid the federal government caved into allowing religious exemptions from vaccines in the military, and it set a bad precedent. It set the stage for states to allow a variety of religious exemptions from other vaccines that contributed to the measles outbreak.
Cue the Don’t Look Up, anti-science trolls!
I am a firm believer in childhood vaccination, but the number of vaccinations now required for babies/children is frightening (even my pediatricians feel this way). It has gotten way out of control! Going into some pediatrician offices now feels like walking into an ad campaign for Big Pharma. Too much of a “good thing” sometimes isn’t too good!
Which vaccinations would you eliminate?
It’s quite simple: Either you believe in science and evidence, or you don’t.
But if you don’t, stay the hell away from those who do. I’m 72 years old. I very much doubt that I would have reached this age (which is actually not that old) were it not for the modern health system in the U.S.
Frankly, religion is the most dangerous conceit we still honor in this country. And it’s killing us.
Science is fact. Viruses and infections spread and sometimes kill. Vaccines contain them and limit community spread. Religion is a belief, not a fact. Why should we put the majority at risk for the belief of certain vocal religious groups?
Believe the science…..hmmm….where have we heard this before? I guess we should therefore believe the science and start giving pregnant women Thalidamide? How about DES? Or how about we bring back lobotomies for the mentally ill? Because you know….Science is settled. GIVE ME A BREAK!
I’m not religious at all. My children are vaccinated and I am vaccinated (the old standards). I used to work in health care and what higher education that I received was ALL based on science/biology/anatomy. Many of the parents using the exemptions aren’t religious at all. The exemption is being used because it exists and parents are exploiting it because there are too many vaccinations on the list.
What vaccinations do you believe we should cut from our requirements?
Birth-18 Years Immunization Schedule – Healthcare Providers | CDC
ACIP Vaccine Recommendations | CDC
I know, too many vaccines! It’s just so HARD.
I only like science that agrees with me!
It’s not a terribly long list, and I cannot imagine what sane person would want children not to have one of these. That’s why I asked, “Which would you eliminate?”
I’ll tell you the back story about the chicken pox vaccine. This was told to me by my pediatrician who sat on the committee deciding on vaccination for schools. Chicken pox is not a very dangerous disease for children (way less deadly than polio or measles). Mostly chicken pox is uncomfortable and takes a while for a kid to return to school. The reason the Pox vaccine is mandatory is because women are the primary care takers of kids and they would have to miss too much work tending to a sick child (children). A women’s rights group got a say in that! That was not a good enough reason for “mandating” the Pox vaccine according to my Pediatrician. He had to vaccinate his own children even though he found it unnecessary. Not everything about “science” is all about the “science”.
At least according to a nameless pediatrician.
And he rightly predicted what would come of the Shingles vaccine! He said that it took a tremendous amount of $$$ to develop the Shingles vaccine and that it would become very popular and expen$ive because it would only have a short life…..because of the chicken pox vaccine. Big Pharma won’t be denied its due $$$!
Shingrix was expensive. No more. It is covered under Medicare Part D. As of 2023, the Inflation Reduction Act eliminated all out-of-pocket costs for vaccines on the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for adults. Thank you, President Biden.
jsrtheta…..of course I’m not going to name my pediatrician! Would you post the name of your physician on this blog?….of course not! You don’t even post under your own real name! Give Me A Break! People like you always pull that one out of the hat when they get challenged in any way…..good Dem that you are!
The mandated vaccine list is way longer than it used to be. Those closer to “the finish line” of life don’t see it as a problem, but parents are concerned for their children (rightly so!) who have their whole lives ahead of them.
Venezuela is a perfect example for what happens when people can’t or won’t get vaccinated.
After one of Russia’s puppets was elected in 2006, to lead that democracy, he started nationalizing industries.
The latest president Nicolas Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, still supported by Russia (should be renamed to Puttinland or something similar) and guarded by thousands of Cuban Troops (he can’t trust his own military to protect him), continued that trend.
Eventually, Venezuela’s economy, one of the healthiest with the best healthcare systems in South America, before Russia’s first puppet came to power, crashed.
More than 8 million Venezuelan citizens have fled that failed state over those years.
“Our analysis exposes the widespread collapse of the public health infrastructure in Venezuela, which has been occurring for the past 7 to 8 years,” explains Shannon Doocy, PhD, one of the article’s lead authors and an associate professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “With few medical supplies or health care providers left in the country, patients can’t find adequate care. To make matters worse, preventive public health efforts, such as vaccinations and mosquito control have dramatically declined, leading to a rapid rise in infectious diseases.” SOURCE: John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health
Apparently some people don’t trust the lengthy and validated testing that we require before a vaccine is considered safe enough to be used. Apparently, the sheer number of vaccines is an argument for their lack of safety.
Common sense is called ”common” because it’s so rare.
The people who claim religious exemptions when it comes to a public health issue, shouldn’t be allowed the exemption. Anti-vaxxers are also relying more on misinformation being spread around about these vaccines and refuse to listen to scientific evidence and medical professionals that claim these vaccinations are successful most of the time with limited risks. If even one person has Covid, and is in a crowd with a few people, they easily would get Covid as well. Next thing you know, each of those would infect who knows how many others. Specifically how we ended up with the Covid pandemic in 2020. It’s the same way with some of these other health crisis that we’ve faced in the past. The people who claim a religious exemption are just trying to get the government to favor their religion more than the health of the population living within the United States. These people claiming these exemptions don’t care about their health or that of anyone else. The only exemption to prevent you from getting a vaccine in order to prevent a health crisis, should be if your immune system is shot and your life would be more threatened by getting the vaccine than it would be threatened if you didn’t get it. These people claiming religious exemption for vaccines very selfish individuals just trying to make a point. They do not care at all about the lives of anyone else.