Let’s put our faith in vaccines, not exemptions

In 2015, protests unfortunately stopped a bill that would have ended the state’s religious exemption policy for school vaccinations. Now, two years later, it’s time to try again.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the first 10 months of 2017 have seen 120 people diagnosed with measles, most of them unvaccinated children. Thankfully, North Carolina was not one of the 15 states with a reported infection. We’ve been lucky, but here’s the thing about luck: you never know when it’s going to change.

The CDC provides us with this scary truth: the number of unvaccinated schoolchildren in North Carolina is on the rise because of the increasing number of religious exemptions. In fact, only four other states had a larger percentage increase in non-medical vaccine exemptions between the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 school years. Overall, our state is well-vaccinated; however, there are areas where religious exemptions are growing at an alarming rate.

In an article written earlier this year for the Asheville Citizen-Times, Jennifer Bowman points out that the Buncombe County religious exemption rate for the 2016-2017 school year was 4.9 percent, almost five times higher than North Carolina’s state average. These facts leave us in a precarious situation, because the more parents choose not to vaccinate their children, the higher the chances are that we will suffer through an avoidable measles outbreak. With that knowledge in mind, how long do you think our luck will hold out?

By eliminating the religious exemption on school vaccinations, we will decrease our community’s susceptibility to this and other preventable infectious diseases. Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics published a policy statement stating that non-medical exemptions, which include religious exemptions, are “problematic because of medical, public health, and ethical reasons and create unnecessary risk to both individual people and communities.” Permitting parents to choose religious exemption of vaccinations not only puts the individual child at risk but also increases the risk of those who rely on the community’s immunity for their protection. By allowing this to happen we are placing an already vulnerable population, especially infants and immunocompromised individuals, at an increased risk and are ensuring that they receive unequal protection.

As states move away from personal and philosophical exemptions, there has been a rise in religious exemptions. This is not a case of people becoming more religious but simply them using it as a loophole to allow them to legally send their children to school without vaccinations. In a peer-reviewed article, religious expert John D Grabenstein examined six major religions’ doctrines concerning vaccinations and found that none of them have edicts that prohibit vaccines. Alternatively, he found multiple doctrines calling for “the preservation of life, caring for others, and duty for the community.” Grabenestein argues that very few religious exemptions are truly based on theological beliefs and that most are more aptly defined as philosophical in nature because their cited concerns are with vaccine safety.

Allowing parents to use the religious exemption in North Carolina’s vaccine policy as a loophole in order to not vaccinate their children is irresponsible. While these individuals may prefer to disregard the evidence and expert advice of the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Pediatrics, UNICEF and many others national and global organizations, we should not allow them to put other children at risk. Each unvaccinated child only leads to increased vulnerability within our communities. Furthermore, by removing the religious exemption rule, no parents would be required to vaccinate their child against their will; instead, it would be required only if they wish to send their child to public or private school. Parents would still have the ability to homeschool their children or enroll them into a home-based independent study program without having them vaccinated.

It is time for Sen. Jeff Tarte, R-Mecklenburg, Sen. Terry Van Duyn, D-Buncombe, and Sen. Tamara Barringer, R-Wake, primary sponsors of the 2015 bill, to take action and propose another bill to remove religious exemptions from the North Carolina vaccine policy. Doing so will not inhibit religious freedom but instead will demonstrate that, as a state, we are dedicated to protecting the health and well-being of our children.

This story was originally published November 30, 2017 at 11:17 AM with the headline "Let’s put our faith in vaccines, not exemptions."