Anti-Vaccine Advocates Pack Capitol For School Vaccine Hearing

HARTFORD, CT — Hundreds of parents went to the Capitol Wednesday to oppose getting rid of the religious exemption for vaccines for children to attend schools. Medical experts and state officials argued that dropping vaccination rates at schools could threaten public health.

The hearing went beyond four hours as of 3 p.m. The bill would still allow for medically-necessary vaccine exemptions. It also would require the state Department of Public Health to release school-by-school immunization data annually.

“An unfounded fear of the safety of vaccines has been driving the increased religious exemption rates,” state Department of Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell said.

Coleman-Mitchell testified in favor of the bill, but suggested language be changed to push its implementation back. As it’s written, children would need to be vaccinated by the fall of 2020.

“I believe this timeline is too aggressive, I would prefer we give families objecting to the vaccination more time to prepare for the new reality, and would appreciate working with the committee to identify a workable solution,” she said.

Gov. Ned Lamont said he is in favor of repealing the religious exemption.

“ Vaccinations are safe. They are the reason dangerous diseases disappeared for decades,” he said in a statement. “It is no coincidence that with the rise of social media spreading a campaign of disinformation over the last several years that has been widely debunked by the medical community, we have seen a steady increase in the number of children whose parents refuse to protect them from preventable diseases.”

Several families at the Capitol carried signs that said, “Parents call the shots,” and “In pharma we trust?” according to the Hartford Courant.

Hundreds of people submitted testimony supporting or in opposition to the bill.

State Rep. Craig Fishbein (R-Wallingford) submitted testimony in opposition to the bill.

“While the child’s parent may not be as well versed in the effects of vaccinations, it is that parent’s responsibility to attend to the child,” he said. “By taking away the parent’s freedom of choice, the parent or guardian must deal with the results of a decision that was not their own until the child becomes an adult.”

The Connecticut Infectious Disease Society submitted testimony in favor of the bill and noted that some groups of people with compromised immune systems aren’t medically eligible to receive certain vaccines. The affected groups include those undergoing chemotherapy, organ transplant patients and HIV patients.

“Protecting these vulnerable individuals relies on the immunity of those individuals who are eligible to receive the vaccine,” the society said in its testimony.

The CT Freedom Alliance said in a statement that it strongly opposes the bill.

"In one fell swoop, this legislation would obliterate the religious liberties of hundreds of thousands of CT schoolchildren, while simultaneously mandating the Department of Public Health to release confidential immunization information for every public and private school student in the state," the group said in a statement.

See Related: School-By-School Vaccination Rates In CT Released For 2018-19

There are 134 schools throughout the state where the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine rate for kindergarteners falls below the federal recommendation of 95 percent, according to data released by the state Department of Public Health for the 2018-2019 school year.

The overall statewide religious exemption rate increased 25 percent between two school years from 2 percent to 2.5 percent; it is the largest single year increase since the state started tracking data a decade ago. Overall, 96.4 percent of public school kindergarteners and 92.4 percent of private school kindergarteners have an MMR vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that most children get their first MMR vaccine between 12 and 15-months-old with certain high risk groups getting it sooner.
High vaccination rates not only protect vaccinated children, but also protect those who can't receive vaccinations for other reasons thanks to herd immunity, according to the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

There were 1,282 individual cases of measles in 31 states during 2019, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention preliminary data. Of those there were 128 hospitalizations and 61 cases that had complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis.