By Rachel La Corte
The Associated Press
OLYMPIA — Personal or philosophical opposition to vaccines would not be an authorized exemption for the parents of school-age children under a measure that received a public hearing before a House committee Tuesday, drawing at least two dozen opponents to the proposed change.
Rep. June Robinson, a Democrat from Everett and member of the House Health Care & Wellness Committee that heard her bill, said she introduced the bill in response to the current measles outbreak that has sickened more than 100 people across the U.S. — including Washington state and on the North Olympic Peninsula — and in Mexico.
No deaths have been reported.
“These are diseases that were eradicated and now are coming back largely due to the fact that many people are choosing to not immunize their children,” Robinson said at the start of the hearing.
“I am introducing this bill to protect the health and safety of our kids and our communities.”
Currently, Washington allows school-vaccination exemptions for children at public or private schools or licensed day care centers based on medical, religious and personal or philosophical beliefs.
House Bill 2009 removes the personal or philosophical belief allowance for an exemption.
Port Angeles school
About 18 percent — or some 19 pupils out of 82 students — were exempt from vaccinations at Olympic Christian School in Port Angeles, where a 5-year-old girl who was diagnosed with measles Thursday attended.
All the exemptions were for parents’ personal reasons.
Nearly 20 percent of Clallam County kindergartners and more than 52 percent of Jefferson County kindergartners lacked complete immunity, according to statistics compiled by Clallam County Health and Human Services for the 2011-12 school year.
In Clallam County, about 7.2 percent of all school children were exempt from vaccinations in the 2013-2014 school year, according to state figures.
Jefferson County has a 12.8 exemption rate.
That means that their parents submitted signed forms citing medical, religious or personal reasons for not immunizing their children.
The measure removing the philosophical or personal reasons for vaccination exemptions has the support of the Washington State Medical Association and Gov. Jay Inslee.
Debate in states
Washington’s legislature is among several state legislatures that are debating vaccine-related measures as dozens of people have fallen ill from a measles outbreak that started at Disneyland in December and spread beyond the theme park.
The initial measles case in Clallam County — a 52-year-old Port Angeles man who recovered in the hospital — was of a different strain than the Disneyland outbreak. Health authorities said that it was a strain common in Asia and the Philippines.
The girl had been in direct contact with the man, health officials said.
In Maine, a bill introduced by a Democratic lawmaker would eliminate the philosophical exemption that allows parents to skip vaccinations for their children.
A separate proposal backed by Democrats aims to make getting exemptions more difficult.
In Michigan, a statewide rule change that took effect Jan. 1 requires parents wanting a philosophical or religious waiver for childhood vaccinations to first be educated by a local health department about the risks.
At the committee hearing in Washington state on Tuesday, former Secretary of State Ralph Munro was among several who testified in support of the bill, and he noted work he has done with the Rotary Clubs of America to vaccinate children in east Africa to eradicate polio.
Re-emerging diseases
He said the danger of diseases like polio reemerging in the U.S. is a real threat.
“The danger is real,” Munro said. “Every unvaccinated child is a health risk to our community.”
Those opposed to the bill cited the rights of parents to make decisions for their children as well as concerns about the safety of vaccines themselves.
“I think we all agree that we want to make choices that will keep our kids safe and healthy,” Marisa Delisle of Edmonds told the committee.
“The issue before us today is about personal freedom.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Washington is among 20 states that allow for personal-belief exemptions and 48 that allow for religious exemptions.
National immunization data from 2013 shows 71 percent of Washington children between ages 19-35 months have received all of their shots on time.
According to the state Department of Health, 4.6 percent of all children in the state haven’t received vaccinations under one of the three current exemptions; committee staff at the hearing said that 3.6 percent of that number were exemptions issued for either personal or religious reasons.
Dr. Beth Harvey, a pediatrician in Olympia, noted that there are schools in Thurston County where the number of children who haven’t been vaccinated against measles runs higher than 30 percent.
For measles, a 95 percent vaccination rate is needed for so-called “herd immunization,” which means enough people are vaccinated to prevent the disease from spreading, she said.
