Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in The 74, in “Some 300 W. Virginia School Vaccine Exemptions Granted Under New, Laxer Policy,” by Amanda Geduld.
Following is an excerpt:
Just over 330 requests for religious and philosophical exemptions to West Virginia’s school vaccine policy have been submitted — and approved — for this school year and 35 have been granted for the coming year, according to records obtained by The 74.
The newly approved religious and philosophical exemptions already outpace the 203 permanent medical exemptions granted in the state over the past decade, at one time the only exemptions allowed in West Virginia.
Before January, when Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed an executive order opening the door for broader exemptions, the state had some of the nation’s strictest childhood vaccination policies.
The loosening of those policies is occurring amid a deadly measles outbreak that has infected over 1,000 people across 30 states and despite state legislators rejecting a bill in March which would have codified religious exemptions into state law. The conflict between the governor’s order and the legislature’s action has led to confusion over how West Virginia officials should proceed and could ultimately lead to legal action between the two branches of government.
In the meantime, the West Virginia Department of Health is granting religious and philosophical exemptions based on the governor’s order and shared those numbers in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The 74.
No requests for the newer category of exemptions has been denied, the department said. In contrast, 125 requests for medical exemptions to mandatory school vaccines have been rejected since 2015. Temporary medical exemptions have been granted to 288 West Virginia children in the past decade.
Richard Hughes, a George Washington University law professor and leading vaccine law expert, said the 331 religious and philosophical exemptions sought in just five months represent a “drastic, dramatic increase in the request for exemptions, and that’s going to potentially have public health consequences.”
He added the state appears to be approving them liberally and without real scrutiny.
“Clearly, when you open the door to these types of exemptions, people use them,” he said. “There has been evidence before that when only religious exemption is available, people request them without any really sincerely held belief. This just opens the floodgates.”
