Mississippi

Court rules Mississippi needs religious exemption to vaccine mandates

A Federal court ruled that the state of Mississippi must provide religious exemptions for the public school vaccine mandates.

Mississippi vaccine exemption – no religion allowed

Mississippi is not exactly one of the USA’s highest ranked states for health issues. The state ranks 47th in public health. It ranks 47th in smoking. It ranks 47th in health care quality. At least it’s consistent! Other surveys put Mississippi dead last in healthcare qualitative measurements. Ironically, there’s one health care issue where the state does well – the lack of a Mississippi vaccine exemption for religion has been critical to the state having the highest vaccine uptake rate in the country.

This anomaly has got to be one of the most interesting stories in the vaccine world – the state’s vaccine uptake rates (see Note 1) for MMR (for measles, mumps and rubella), DTaP (for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough), and varicella (chickenpox) vaccines exceed 99.4%. This number far is far beyond the level necessary for the herd effect to protect all individuals in an area. All thanks to a lack of a Mississippi vaccine exemption for religious beliefs.

The high vaccine uptake rate breaks the irony meter for one other reason – Mississippi is one of the country’s most religious states. And the fact that the state does not allow religious exemptions for vaccination of young children seems like it is out of character for the state. Mississippi is one of only three states that disallow religious exemptions to vaccines (California and West Virginia being the other two). And the Mississippi vaccine exemption rules rely upon a simple piece of jurisprudence – parental duties trump parental rights.

As a result of this important concept, Mississippi vaccine exemption rules do not allow for a religious exemption. I know, it is difficult to wrap your mind around Mississippi in this story. But let’s find out why the state has led the way on stopping religious exemptions.

France mandates vaccines – saving children from diseases

During an address to Parliament on Tuesday, Édouard Philippe, who serves as prime minister under new liberal president Emmanuel Macron, stated that starting next year, France mandates vaccines for all children. It will mandate vaccines for young children that are unanimously recommended by health authorities starting next year.

Three vaccines, for diphtheria, tetanus and poliomyelitis, are already mandatory in France. Vaccines that would become compulsory under the new law would be pertussis, measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) , hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae bacteria, pneumococcus and meningococcus C.

Phillipe said, in his speech, that “children are still dying of measles. In the homeland of [Louis] Pasteur that is not admissible.” Legendary scientist Pasteur is one of the founders of the field of bacteriology and invented vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Read More »France mandates vaccines – saving children from diseases

Anti-vaccine paper retracted again – like a zombie, it keeps coming back

Late last year, I spent a couple of thousand words critiquing an awful anti-vaccine paper that attempted to claim that vaccinated kids were sicker than unvaccinated kids. Soon after the paper was published, a huge kerfuffle arose on Twitter, which… Read More »Anti-vaccine paper retracted again – like a zombie, it keeps coming back

Vaccine legislation in the USA – a state by state analysis

One of the most successful pieces of vaccine legislation in recent years has been SB277 in California, which eliminated personal belief exemptions (PBE), that allowed a parent to exclude a child from immunization requirements for school based on the parent’s personal beliefs, including religious objections. These PBEs had been used and abused by anti-vaccine parents to exempt their school-aged children from most, if not all, vaccines.

Other than California, only West Virginia and Mississippi have such strict prohibitions on these PBEs that they are effectively not allowed as a method to refuse vaccines before a child enters school. But many other states are considering vaccine legislation that could improve vaccine uptake. Unfortunately, there are also states on the other side of the equation that are considering laws that reduce restrictions on personal belief exemptions.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), which seems to conflate “information” with misinformation about vaccines, claims that there are 134 vaccine bills being considered in 35 states. I wish!

I thought we would could take a look at current vaccine legislation being considered by various states that could potentially increase vaccine uptake in those states. Then we’ll take a look at those states pushing legislation that might decrease vaccine uptake. This should provide real information about what’s going on with these laws, instead of the alternative facts from the vaccine deniers at NVIC.

California SB277 expected to drop vaccine preventable disease rates

California SB277 makes immunization mandatory for children attending schools in the state by removing personal belief exemptions for vaccination. These personal belief exemptions were abused by parents in pockets of California, causing immunization rates in some communities to fall precipitously. California SB277… Read More »California SB277 expected to drop vaccine preventable disease rates

Update: Gov. Brown signs California vaccine exemption bill

The California vaccine exemption bill – SB 277, which essentially eliminates all vaccine personal belief exemptions for children to be vaccines prior to attending schools in the state – was signed into law today by Governor Jerry Brown (D). The SB 277 vaccine exemption bill… Read More »Update: Gov. Brown signs California vaccine exemption bill

Despite activities of vaccine refusers, nearly all kids immunized

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that most kindergartners in the United States received their recommended vaccines for measles and other diseases during the 2012-2013 school year. However, the CDC also mentioned concern about unvaccinated clusters of children that are at risk from vaccine preventable diseases, and may pose a health risk to the community at large.

Overall, 48 states and DC (as well as 8 US jurisdictions, including Guam, Puerto Rico and other territories) reported 2012-13 school vaccination coverage. Approximately 94.5% of kindergartners had received their complete MMR vaccinations, an insignificant drop from the 2011-12 level of 94.8%. DTaP coverage was 95.1%, above Healthy People 2020 target of 95%. For the varicella vaccine, 93.8% of American kindergartners received both necessary doses.

West Virginia tough on vaccine exemptions

by Michael Simpson
2019-08-24
26 Comments
Anti-vaccines, Infectious disease, Religion, Vaccines

The state of West Virginia (WV) has one of the toughest child vaccination regulations in the United States, not allowing any religious exemptions to vaccinations required before attending school. Only Mississippi has regulations this strict for allowable exemptions. Of course, as I have written, religious exemptions have been abused by vaccine deniers by creating “fake” religions so that parents’ antivaccination beliefs will be recognized by the state. In fact, only medical exemptions are accepted by the state (pdf), and their standards on who can meet the medical exemption are quite tough.

Alabama and Mississippi think Obama is a Muslim and evolution is wrong

Obama receiving an Alabama jersey after honoring Alabama for the 2011 NCAA Division 1 football championship. Of course, it was followed by a Muslim prayer.

I’ve always considered the Deep South, which includes Alabama and Mississippi, to be a part of the country way out of step with the real world, including the rest of the country. Without the South, the United States would basically be a liberal, religiously tolerant, progressive country, similar in a lot of respects to Canada. Both Alabama and Mississippi are relatively poor with educational systems that rank at or near the bottom of the US. Other than college football champion, it’s hard to see that their educational system has done much positive.Read More »Alabama and Mississippi think Obama is a Muslim and evolution is wrong