Major Change Urged To Vaccination Law In CT

CONNECTICUT — A large national increase in the number of measles cases and a statewide decline in immunizations for the disease are prompting Gov. Ned Lamont to promise repealing the state's religious exemption. The law allowing the exemptions has been on the books for 60 years.

"This is an incredibly difficult decision and something that I absolutely have thought long and hard about and consulted on with many medical experts. When it comes to the safety and health of our kids, we need to take an abundance of caution," Lamont said in a release.

The governor and other Connecticut leaders are taking their cues from a letter by the new Connecticut Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell.

"In 2019, the United States has seen the largest increase in the number of measles cases in the last 25 years," Coleman-Mitchell wrote in a letter to legislators this morning. "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 1,241 people in 31 states contracted measles between January 1 and September 5, 2019, including three cases in Connecticut and more than 1,000 cases in Brooklyn and Rockland County, NY."

The majority of those cases were among people who were not vaccinated against measles, according to Coleman-Mitchell. As of Sept. 5, 130 of the people who got measles this year were hospitalized, and 65 reported having complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis.

In a move that proved controversial, last May the state Department of Public Health released school-level immunization rates to the public. The data showed that during the 2017-18 school year, 102 schools in Connecticut had kindergarten immunization rates for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine below the federal guideline of 95 percent. The DPH plans to release immunization rates by school for the 2018-19 school year on Oct. 21, letter reads.

Coleman-Mitchell draws a correlation between a 0.6 percent drop in immunizations tabulated by her office in August, and a spike in the overall number of religious exemptions to vaccination of 25.9 percent between the school years 2017-18 and 2018-19.

The DPH also recommended legislators tighten the requirements for medical exemptions as well. Coleman-Mitchell wrote that "limiting exemptions to vaccination is likely to result in higher immunization rates in a school setting. An unintended consequence experienced in states that have repealed or limited religious, philosophical or personal exemptions to vaccination has been a rise in the level of medical exemptions." She said that many of the medical exemptions sought following the repeal of personal belief exemptions in 2015 in California were "highly suspect," with "very little ability to call those newer medical exemptions into question or hold physicians agreeing to them accountable."

Coleman-Mitchell suggested that the elimination of religious exemption for vaccination commence with the 2021-22 school year. The delay in implementation would give school districts and parents time to make whatever arrangements would be necessary if they choose not to vaccinate children for non-medical reasons.

"I want to make it clear, parents will still have a choice regarding the medical decisions for their children, but if you make the choice not to protect your children against preventable diseases then alternate decisions must be made about where to educate your children," Lamont said.

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