Vermont’s rules on vaccines for school met with parents’ support and pushback

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JUDY WOODRUFF: For some parents in the U.S.,
it’s a question in the fall: Should they vaccinate their children
to send them to school?


The American Academy of Pediatrics believes so and says that a
measles outbreak that started at Disneyland a few years ago shows
how fast childhood diseases can resurface if not enough children
are protected.


California and several states have since tightened their
immunization requirements. But some parents are still pushing
back.


PBS special correspondent Lisa Stark of our partner Education
Week reports from Vermont about the vaccine fight there.


It’s part of our weekly series Making the Grade.


LISA STARK: Seven-year-old Merin Blake is a
second grader at Champlain Elementary in Burlington, Vermont, a
school her parents picked for her back in kindergarten, not
because of class size or test scores, but based on how many
students had all their vaccines.


MIA HOCKETT, Merin’s Mom: When I took a
look at the immunization rates for schools in Burlington, and
also, though, at the kind of private schools in the area, I was
really aghast about how low they were. And that made me really,
really anxious.


LISA STARK: Mom Mia Hockett was anxious because
Merin was in the midst of treatment for childhood leukemia,
diagnosed just before her 4th birthday. The intensive
chemotherapy compromised her immune system, making her vulnerable
to diseases.


School nurse Nancy Pruitt worked to keep Merin safe.


NANCY PRUITT, Certified School Nurse,
Champlain Elementary: In her classroom, we made sure that the
kids were vaccinated. We don’t have the — we can’t always do
that, but we made sure that she had a classroom with kids that
had been vaccinated.


LISA STARK: Vaccinated against preventable
illnesses, such as mumps, measles, whooping cough, chicken pox,
and polio, which would have been especially dangerous for Merin.


MIA HOCKETT: I know that kind of a lot of people
think that we don’t really have these diseases, so we don’t need
to be afraid of them. But in that situation, when we’re kind of
thinking about, you know, our child…


LISA STARK: Hockett isn’t just a mom. She’s also
a doctor. And she wanted a school with vaccination rates of at
least 90 to 95 percent, which public health officials say is
required to protect those who are vulnerable or can’t be
vaccinated.


Christine Finley runs the immunization program for the state of
Vermont.


CHRISTINE FINLEY, Vermont Department of Health:
When children are in school, they’re in a setting where they are
interacting broadly with one another.


If you don’t have a large percentage of the children vaccinated,
then, basically, your shield isn’t going to work, because you
have got places where a disease can begin to spread within a
school.


LISA STARK: Finley says, by 2014, vaccine rates
had dropped to alarming levels, at some public schools, as many
as 20 percent of students without all the required shots, and at
a dozen private school, 50 percent not fully vaccinated.


Vermont, like every state, requires vaccines to attend school,
but, like all states, allows exemptions.


In every state, children can get waivers for medical reasons.
Forty-seven states permit families to skip vaccines for religious
beliefs; 18 also allow for personal or philosophical exemptions.


Some states are moving to tighten their laws, chief among them
California, which, in 2015, did away with all waivers, except for
medical exemptions.


Kindergarten vaccination rates have jumped to the highest levels
in more than 15 years, nearly 96 percent.


DANIEL SALMON, Johns Hopkins University: The
problem is, in many states, it’s easier to get an exemption than
it is to vaccinate your child.


LISA STARK: Easier, says Daniel Salmon with the
Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, because
parents simply sign a waiver request, much less effort than
getting children vaccinated.


WOMAN: So, this one is for you, and this one is
for the school.


DANIEL SALMON: While, nationally, most people
vaccinate their children, and that’s clearly the norm, we’re
starting to see communities where more and more parents are
refusing vaccines.


LISA STARK: Low vaccine rates in some
communities are blamed for three large measles outbreaks in the
past four years, one in Ohio, one that began in Disneyland and
spread to seven states, and another this year in Minnesota.


Are your children vaccinated?


ARIEL BREWER LOUIS, Vermont Parent: No,
they are not.


LISA STARK: Ariel Brewer Louis is a Vermont mom
of three. We caught up with her during an event for those who
question the safety and efficacy of vaccines.


She told her story on board a bus that’s traveling the nation to
promote an anti-vaccine documentary and record vaccine
testimonials.


ARIEL BREWER LOUIS: I have three girls.


LISA STARK: Brewer Louis recalled that decades
ago her brother may have had a serious reaction to a vaccine,
according to their mother.


ARIEL BREWER LOUIS: It must have planted a seed,
because when my first was born, I just said no. I just opted out.


LISA STARK: Parents say they forgo some or all
vaccines for their children for a variety of reasons. They’re
worried about the number of doses, the crowded vaccine schedule,
and past claims of a link to autism, which have been discredited.


Jennifer Stella runs the Vermont Coalition for Vaccine Choice.


Are you anti-vaccine?


JENNIFER STELLA, Co-Director, Vermont
Coalition for Vaccine Choice: I think I have been called
anti-vaccine a lot, haven’t I? You know, I’m pro-choice. I think
that everybody should have a choice.


LISA STARK: Stella says her two children reacted
badly after receiving several immunizations. Her son cried
incessantly, stopped nursing and seized in her arms, and her
daughter had head-to-toe rashes.


JENNIFER STELLA: I don’t think that vaccines are
safe enough for my children.


LISA STARK: Pediatrician Jill Rinehart says
vaccines are extremely safe and effective.


DR. JILL RINEHART, Pediatrician: I mean, there’s
not much that I do every day for children that saves lives.
Immunizations are something that I do every day that I know makes
a huge difference.


LISA STARK: Rinehart and other doctors helped
push the state to tighten Vermont’s vaccine laws. So did Hockett,
with Mia in tow.


In 2015, lawmakers eliminated the state’s philosophical
exemption. Parents can still opt out for religious or medical
reasons.


Partly because of the change in law, Brewer Louis is
homeschooling her 8-year-old. But she is relying on the religious
exemption to send another daughter to preschool.


What is your religious objections to vaccines?


ARIEL BREWER LOUIS: I don’t have a religious
objection to vaccines, but that’s my only option. And the way I
see it, I have done my research, and there’s no way I am going to
vaccinate my children to send them to school.


LISA STARK: What do you say to people who say to
you, I should have the right not to vaccinate my child?


MIA HOCKETT: I absolutely agree with that, but
none of this legislation actually forces someone to get
immunized. What is says is that, if you’re opting out of your
right and responsibility to vaccine, then you also have to bear
the burden of opting out of the benefits of organized education.


LISA STARK: Here in Vermont, parents have at
most six months from the start of school to either make sure
their child has all the required vaccinations or to claim an
exemption. If they don’t, that child is no longer welcome at
school.


School nurse Pruitt says no student has been excluded from her
school yet, but some have come close. She believes the new law
has had an impact.


NANCY PRUITT: So we had a 2.3 percent increase
on our student body being fully vaccinated.


LISA STARK: And do you think that’s because of
the change in the law?


NANCY PRUITT: I do.


LISA STARK: As for Hockett, she’s focused on a
return to normalcy. Merin is considered cured of leukemia, and,
in August, was deemed healthy enough to resume her vaccines.


So, this school year, Merin’s parents hope she can count on her
own immunity, not just others, to stay healthy.


For the PBS NewsHour and Education Week, I’m Lisa Stark in
Burlington, Vermont.


The post Vermont’s rules on vaccines for school met with parents’
support and pushback appeared first on PBS NewsHour.