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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – A new Illinois law makes it more difficult for parents to cite religious objections to state-required vaccinations of their children. It also raises an ethical question for physicians, who now are asked to certify that they discussed with the parents the dangers of their children not being vaccinated.
Signed on Aug. 3, Illinois Senate Bill 1410 requires that parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated due to religious objections complete a Certificate of Religious Exemption and submit it to their local school before their child begins kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade. To complete the form, parents must obtain the signature of a health care provider confirming that the provider has counseled those parents about the benefits of immunizations and the health risks of not vaccinating their children.
Early drafts of the bill called for that form to be signed by a “religious official attesting to a bona fide religious objection,” but were amended following pressure from religious freedom advocacy groups. Illinois parents sought more than 13,000 religious exemptions from their children’s required vaccinations in 2013, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Kenneth Boyer, MD, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Rush, would tell any parent asking him to sign the form that “I respect your religious liberty, but because I know that signing your exemption document puts your and others’ children in danger, I have a moral objection to your religion objection.” Boyer is the former chairperson of Rush’s Department of Pediatrics.
A movement toward doing away with exemptions
The new Illinois law does not allow for exemptions based on non-religious exemptions, such as the belief in some circles that the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella causes autism. Doctors at Rush and elsewhereoverwhelmingly endorse the safety and use of vaccines.
“Vaccines are the best ways to prevent certain diseases, some of which are life-threatening,” says Renee Slade, MD, a physician in the Rush Pediatric Primary Care Center. “It always disappoints me when parents choose not to vaccinate their children, because study after study after study has shown the safety of vaccinations.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that states can mandate immunizations but must allow for medical exemptions. However, many physicians and physician groups cite recent outbreaks of preventable diseases – like the 2014 measles outbreak traced to Disneyland in California – as evidence that there should be no non-medical vaccination exemptions no matter who signs them. That outbreak led California to eliminate all exemptions from childhood vaccines in June, requiring parents who don’t vaccinate their children to school them at home.
“As evident from the recent measles outbreak at Disneyland, protecting community health in today’s mobile society requires that policymakers not permit individuals from opting out of immunization solely as a matter of personal preference or convenience,” says Patrice Harris, MD, MA, an American Medical Association board member. “When people are immunized they also help prevent the spread of disease to others.”
Indeed, research compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates the uses of non-medical exemptions has risen substantially in the last 15 years and tend to cluster geographically. Epidemiologists consider these geographic clusters of unvaccinated children outbreak threats as they dip below “herd immunity” thresholds – that is, the minimum amount of vaccinated people needed to prevent an illness from spreading.
Vaccines are a ‘true miracle’
Because unvaccinated children pose a threat to others, many health care providers find their parents’ religious objections particularly frustrating. “I’m no theologian, but I question if there is any scripture passage that justifies unnecessarily putting children’s lives at risk,” says Boyer, who cared for children with most of the illnesses that can now be prevented with vaccines during his 40 years in practice. “Some of those children have died or been permanently disabled from their infections. Vaccines are safe, save lives, and are among the true miracles of modern medicine.”
Boyer’s message to any parent asking a religious exemption form is clear: ‘I’d be happy to have the required conversation about the risks of being unvaccinated, but I cannot sign the form, because I would then feel morally responsible if your child were to contract one of these diseases, or if they infected another child -perhaps an infant or cancer patient whose parents weren’t in the position to choose not to vaccinate.”
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