But this has not been raised as an issue at our Delegate Assembly, which is NJSBA's governing body."īoth sides in the vaccination debate claim their adversaries don't understand each other's concerns. "We get a few inquiries each year from districts about what the law requires, usually in the spring, when districts are registering children. "We're aware the numbers of parents seeking the exemption have increased," said Jeanette Rundquist, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. The issue is rarely raised at the local school board level. During the previous administration, for instance, health officials said with the number of unvaccinated children below 2 percent, "they did not want anything to do with taking on the religious exemption," she said. Politically, the issue is "a hot potato" that health and school officials have been loathe to take on, Fisher said. Many of whom are from the most educated and affluent areas of the state.Ī bill introduced in the legislature several times over the years that would tighten the religious exemption statute to require a letter from a clergy member, and a detailed explanation from a family on how their religious beliefs conflict with vaccines has failed to gain traction. There is a small but determined group of parents, however, whose mistrust of pharmaceutical companies and doctors have driven them to do their own research. You can understand their hesitancy," said Fisher, who said she has been practicing long enough to see children suffer and die from what are now preventable diseases. They have this perfectly normal baby and they don't want them injected for some virus they have never seen. "Most young mothers have never seen these diseases. A parent need only to submit a signed statement indicating, "immunization interferes with the free exercise of the pupil's religious rights," according to the health department website. Seeking a religious exemption in New Jersey is not difficult, noted Margaret Fisher, a prominent pediatric disease specialist who works at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch. The steady rise in the number of religious exemptions worries pediatricians and infectious disease specialists who say parents don't realize they could be putting their children at risk, and want lawmakers to make it tougher to opt out of vaccines. When coupled with the 1,592 children who did not receive the shots for medical reasons last year, just 2 percent of the student population is unvaccinated, the state data said. The largest number of exemptions were sought in Hunterdon, Monmouth, Warren and Sussex counties, according to the data, the most recent available. But the number of exemptions sought on religious grounds has grown from 1,641 in the 2005-06 academic year to 8,977 in the 2013-14 year. The vast majority of the school children last year still have received the battery of shots the law requires. TRENTON - The number of school children in New Jersey who were permitted to skip their shots last year because parents claimed vaccinations violate their religious beliefs is more than five times greater than it was eight years ago, according to state health department data.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |