State Seeks Fewer Exemptions for Student Vaccines

When Gov. Christine Gregoire recently signed a bill to require medical consultations before students could be exempt from required vaccines, Clover Park School District officials were ready.

In fact, they've been ready for a long time. 

"We have not allowed exemptions for years without a medical consultation," said Kim Prentice, CPSD communications manager. "If you do want an exemption you have to go through the school nurse or a health-care provider prior to exemption being granted."

Signed into law on May 11, Senate Bill 5005 requires parents to seek qualified medical counsel regarding immunization exemptions -- a change from the prior law that simply allowed parents to opt out.

Dr. Anthony Chen, Tacoma Pierce-County Health director, supported the change in law noting that linkage increased levels of vaccine exemptions leads to increased risk of outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases.

"One study showed that states with philosophical exemptions had 90 percent more cases of whooping cough than states with stricter rules," Chen said in a Health Department memo.

But the new law is not without opponents. Critic say laws requiring a doctor's approval of an exemption are unconstitutional. Concerned parents have said if someone doesn't want their children to be immunized, they should not have to jump through unreasonable hoops and that it's stripping them of another one of their freedoms.

The CPSD disagrees.

"If everyone is immunized from predatory diseases, we’re all going to be safer," Prentice said.

School officials note that most of the local exemptions had nothing to do with religious or health objections. A pilot project in an unnamed Pierce County school district in 2010 showed that many exemptions are provided for convenience rather than for exemption, Chen said.

"When vaccine records were reviewed, it was found that about one-third of the exemptions were being claimed for vaccinations children already had," he said. "Follow-up with calls to parents claiming exemptions found that many were willing to have their children come in for immunizations and few were adamantly opposed to vaccinating their children."

Health Department officials say the only place they can ask for immunizations is in schools. Bridget Vandeventer, communications manager for TPCH, said that some families have been claiming exemption upon enrolling their child because they can't find their immunization records.

"This new law makes it harder to claim an exemption," Vandeventer said.

The Clover Park School District holds free immunization clinics on or before the first day of school in September. Health Department officials are working on a new form that would explain the immunization process to parents.