Autism rates have tripled — it’s still not caused by vaccines
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Legal challenges to remove religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates rejected by Courts
This article challenges to stricter school vaccine mandates was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.
Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.
On December 3, 2019, Judge Denise Hartman, from the New York Supreme Court in Albany (see Note 1), rejected a claim challenging the removal of the religious exemption from school vaccine mandates.
Judge Hartman has previously, in a careful decision upheld on appeal, rejected plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction on stricter school vaccine mandates. In this decision, she provided a well-reasoned, thoughtful analysis of the constitutional issues.
Judge Hartman found that the change in the law in New York was based on public health, not hostility to religion, and fits well within the extensive precedent upholding mandates without requiring a religious exemption.
This lawsuit was the strongest, best-argued challenge to the New York law on religious freedom grounds. Unless plaintiffs appeal, this is likely the end for any serious chance opponents had at overturning the law, and even on appeal, their chances are likely low.
Read More »Legal challenges to remove religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates rejected by Courts
A review of major religions and vaccines – almost all support vaccinations
This article, about major religions and vaccines, shows that many claims that vaccinations are against religion are not supported by actual religious dogma. As a result, several states, like New York, California, and Maine, have taken steps to limit and or eliminate religious exemptions to vaccines as a result of the abuse of the exemption.
A while ago, I wrote an article about a father who is suing the New York Department of Education to force a school to allow his unvaccinated son into school. The basis of his lawsuit is that vaccination is against his religious beliefs.
The father is a Roman Catholic and claimed that his church was opposed to vaccines. As far as I could find, the Catholic Church strongly supports vaccines, with Pope Francis stating that getting the COVID-19 vaccine is an “act of love,” even making it a moral and ethical issue by clearly stating that “there would seem to be no proper grounds for refusing immunization against dangerous contagious diseases…”
The Catholic Church even supports the use of those vaccines manufactured using permanent cell lines that derive from aborted fetuses. In other words, not only is the Catholic Church not opposed to vaccination, it seems to indicate that it would immoral to not vaccinate.
This all leads me to wonder if there was research into the relationship between religions and vaccines. Of course, researchers much smarter than this old dinosaur examined the issue – spoiler alert, religions broadly support vaccinations.
Read More »A review of major religions and vaccines – almost all support vaccinations
COVID-19 religious gatherings – Supreme Court prevents NY from enforcing limits
This article, about a recent Supreme Court decision that prevents New York from enforcing limits on religious gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic, was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.
Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.
On November 24, 2020, the Supreme Court ordered temporary relief preventing Governor Cuomo and New York officials from enforcing limits on gathering imposed on religious houses during the COVID-19 pandemic (Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Andrew M. Cuomo). The decision, as the dissents pointed out, raises concerns about the ability of states to limit religious activities in the interest of protecting believers – and the broader public – from diseases. But the per curiam opinion makes relatively limited changes to our First Amendment jurisprudence, though it may signal that the court will, in the future, change it, and does not at present change the legal framework governing vaccine mandates.Read More »COVID-19 religious gatherings – Supreme Court prevents NY from enforcing limits
“Hear This Well” anti-vaccine group misrepresents Colorado legislation
This article, about the anti-vaccine group, Hear This Well, was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.
Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease.
It is not uncommon for anti-vaccine activists, like the Hear This Well group, to misrepresent pending legislation or passed legislation. Striking examples included anti-vaccine activists claiming that SB276, the California law that added a review of medical exemptions, would remove all medical exemptions.
Similarly, these activists proposed a proposition to undo Maine’s law removing the non-medical exemption from school immunization mandates. Opponents, apparently, misrepresented the bill to people, to the extent that some signed thinking they were supporting vaccine mandates.
In California, as well, when opponents tried to put SB277 on the ballot, they misrepresented the law by trying to claim it mandated HPV vaccines, which was untrue.
It’s not clear whether the misrepresentations, at least in some of these cases, were out of intentional dishonesty or lack of understanding of the laws or bills in question. The results were the same – misrepresenting the law to others.
Following that tradition, in two posts addressing a newly proposed bill in Colorado, the anti-vaccine page Hear This Well misrepresented the new bill, sometimes just by using hyperbolic, misleading language and sometimes by making clearly incorrect statements.
Whether this was due to misunderstanding of the bill or intentional misrepresentation is impossible to tell, but at any rate, this could lead to people opposing the bill for incorrect reasons or because of misrepresentation.Read More »“Hear This Well” anti-vaccine group misrepresents Colorado legislation
School vaccine mandates do not illegally discriminate – Prof. Dorit Reiss
Anti-vaccine activists have repeatedly claimed that statutes abolishing non-medical exemptions from school vaccine mandates are discriminatory. Some went as far as to compare it to segregation. Courts in California and New York, echoing years of jurisprudence, rejected these claims in recent years in no uncertain claims, making it clear that school mandates are not discriminatory.Read More »School vaccine mandates do not illegally discriminate – Prof. Dorit Reiss
US measles epidemic hits 1241 cases – get the MMR vaccine – UPDATED
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Services have reported that the ongoing measles epidemic has, as of 19 September 2019, has resulted in 1241 cases in 31 states. This makes 2019 (which is around 9 months old) the worst year for measles since 1992, when there were 963 cases for all 12 months.
At this rate, we can expect well over 1500 measles cases for 2019, making it the worst year since the major measles epidemics of the late 1980s.
In 2000, the CDC had stated that measles was eradicated in the USA. But as a result of fears and misinformation about the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, vaccination rates have dropped allowing measles to again attack children. Read More »US measles epidemic hits 1241 cases – get the MMR vaccine – UPDATED
Anti HPV vaccine memes – New York anti-vaxxers get everything wrong
The anti-HPV vaccine crowd is now furious about New York Senate bill S298A, which is now in the Health Committee of that body. Basically, the bill would add the HPV vaccine to the vaccine schedule for all New York children born after January 1, 2008.
As I’ve mentioned before, many of us have observed that the anti-HPV vaccine beliefs are the strongest of them all in the anti-vaccine religion. Even among those who generally vaccinate their children will stop at the HPV vaccine, for reasons that make even less sense than their usual vaccine denial.
In response to the S298A, there has been a lot of nonsense being pushed about the vaccine. One of those anti-HPV vaccine memes reached the claws of this ancient dinosaur.
And you know what we do here? Yes, we’re going to skeptically demolish it with real science. Read More »Anti HPV vaccine memes – New York anti-vaxxers get everything wrong
New York vaccine exemptions law – UPDATE – appeals court rejects stay
On July 12, 2019, Judge Mackey of the Albany County Supreme Court (see Note 1) rejected the temporary restraining order request of plaintiffs challenging the updated New York vaccine exemptions law which removed the state’s religious exemption for school immunization requirements (see Note 2). While this is only the first step in what is almost certain to be a long process, and full arguments were not yet heard, the content of the decision does not bode well for plaintiffs – in line with abundant jurisprudence.Read More »New York vaccine exemptions law – UPDATE – appeals court rejects stay
New York vaccine law does not violate IDEA – Update – no injunction
On June 13, 2019, a revised New York vaccine law, which removed the religious exemption to its school immunization mandate, was signed by the governor. Anti-vaccine activists filed a lawsuit against the law, claiming it violates the First Amendment – a claim that flies in the face of extensive jurisprudence.
On July 26, 2019 a second lawsuit was filed against the law claiming it violates the IDEA act by keeping children with disabilities out of school, led by attorney Kim Mack Rosenberg who was involved in arguing against California’s law (though anti-vaccine activist’s Robert F. Kennedy’s jr. organization, Children’s Health Defense, took credit for it as well). Attorney Rosenberg is clearly highly competent, though unfortunately, also very anti-vaccine, and made the best case possible for her claims.
While there is not the same extensive jurisprudence on this issue as there is on other issues, there are good grounds to reject the claims here, since, as spelled out by public health scholars Ross Silverman and Wendy Hense, the barrier to children’s access to services is parental choice not to vaccinate, not a state-created impediment that targets children with disabilities. Other claims in the lawsuit are also problematic.Read More »New York vaccine law does not violate IDEA – Update – no injunction