Earlier this month, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing federal employees to get COVID-19 shots. Government officials nationwide also have announced COVID-19 immunization requirements for government workers. Dozens of companies, including Delta Airlines, Facebook, Uber and Walmart, have mandated COVID-19 vaccinations for employees. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, an increasing number of schools and higher education institutions are ordering students to get inoculated against COVID-19. They add that it appears students’ parents and legal guardians “may seek out physicians who are more willing to attest to medical contraindications in the absence of a non-medical exemptions allowance.” “The unintended consequence of an increase in medical exemption rates - which notably tripled in California - highlights a potential pitfall with this approach,” researchers write in the Expert Review of Vaccines in 2019. By the second year, medical exemption rates jumped. In 2016, California enacted a law banning nonmedical exemptions in schools. Researchers from Emory University in Atlanta found evidence of a replacement effect when schools prohibit all “nonmedical” exemptions - an umbrella term that applies to religious, philosophical and personal belief exemptions. Williams, a pediatrician at Denver Health Medical Center and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “Religious exemptions may be an increasingly problematic or outdated exemption category, and researchers and policy makers must work together to determine how best to balance a respect for religious liberty with the need to protect public health,” write the authors, led by Joshua T. Scholars call this a “replacement effect,” meaning families seek a different exemption when the type they had been using no longer is available. The authors of that paper note that after Vermont eliminated personal belief exemptions in schools in 2016, the share of kindergartners with religious exemptions increased sevenfold to 3.7%. States that offer religious exemptions but do not provide personal belief exemptions are four times as likely to have kindergartners with religious exemptions, compared with states that grant both types of exemption, the December 2019 paper in Pediatrics reveals. Research, however, suggests that banning one type of exemption leads to an increase in another. Six states - California, Connecticut, Maine, Mississippi, New York and West Virginia - prohibit K-12 schools from granting exemptions on religious grounds, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports the elimination of childhood vaccine exemptions, except for medical reasons. In many states, public and private schools serving kids in kindergarten through 12th grade also allow exemptions based on personal beliefs or philosophies, which generally allow parents to opt out of vaccines simply because they oppose them. Schools, employers and higher education institutions with vaccination mandates typically permit exemptions based on religion or medical reasons. Four years earlier, 1.1% of kindergarteners did. SeptemReligious exemptions and required vaccines: Examining the researchīy Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource September 29, 2021Įven as national surveys show Americans drawing away from religion, more American children are using religion to skip required school vaccinations. Įven before some California school districts ordered students in certain age groups to get immunized against COVID-19, research showed the percentage of kindergarteners whose parents claim vaccines conflict with their religious beliefs was on the rise.Ī December 2019 analysis published in Pediatrics finds an estimated 1.7% of kindergarteners nationwide received religious exemptions to vaccination during the 2017-18 academic year. Religious exemptions and required vaccines: Examining the researchīy Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource
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