{"id":202429,"date":"2019-02-16T01:40:06","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T06:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=202429"},"modified":"2019-02-16T01:40:06","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T06:40:06","slug":"washington-lawmakers-advance-limits-on-vaccine-exemptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/02\/16\/washington-lawmakers-advance-limits-on-vaccine-exemptions\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington lawmakers advance limits on vaccine exemptions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Four per cent of Washington secondary school students have non-medical vaccine exemptions, the state Department of Health said. Of those, 3.7 per cent of the exemptions are personal, and the rest are religious. (Pixabay Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OLYMPIA, Wash. \u2013 Washington state lawmakers advanced a measure Friday that would remove parents’ ability to claim a personal or philosophical exemption to vaccinating their school-age children for measles as the Pacific Northwest struggles with an outbreak of the contagious virus.<\/p>\n

The House Health Care and Wellness Committee approved House Bill 1638 on a 10-5 vote. The full House could vote on it in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

The legislation comes amid an outbreak that has sickened more than 50 people in the Pacific Northwest and led Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to declare a state of emergency. Health officials have reported at least 54 known cases in Washington state and four in Oregon.<\/p>\n

Washington is among 17 states, including Oregon, that allow some type of non-medical vaccine exemption for \u201cpersonal, moral or other beliefs,\u201d according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.<\/p>\n

Washington now allows vaccination exemptions for children at public or private schools or licensed day-care centres based on medical, religious and personal or philosophical beliefs. Unless an exemption is claimed, a child is required to be vaccinated against or show proof of acquired immunity for nearly a dozen diseases \u2013 including polio, whooping cough and mumps \u2013 before they can attend school or a child care centre.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people who oppose ending the exemptions, including environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., showed up at a public hearing on the legislation last week.<\/p>\n

A broader measure introduced in the state Senate, which would not allow personal or philosophical exemptions to be granted for any required school vaccinations, is scheduled for a public hearing next Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Four per cent of Washington secondary school students have non-medical vaccine exemptions, the state Department of Health said. Of those, 3.7 per cent of the exemptions are personal, and the rest are religious.<\/p>\n

In Clark County \u2013 an area just north of Portland, Oregon, where all but one of the Washington cases are concentrated \u2013 6.7 per cent of kindergartners had a non-medical exemption for the 2017-18 school year, health officials said.<\/p>\n

California removed personal belief vaccine exemptions for children in both public and private schools in 2015 after a measles outbreak at Disneyland sickened 147 people and spread across the U.S. and into Canada. Vermont also abandoned its personal exemption in 2015.<\/p>\n

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OLYMPIA, Wash. \u2013 Washington state lawmakers advanced a measure Friday that would remove parents’ ability to claim a personal or …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":201433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-rachel-la-corte","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}