As anti-vax folks haven’t been very successful in stopping states from passing necessary new vaccine laws, what are they doing now?
“In the Plainview-Old Bethpage School District, Superintendent Dr. Lorna Lewis says they had about 65 students affected by the change in religious exemptions. That number is now down to about 20.”
Deadline for unvaccinated students arrives in New York schools
Fortunately, many are vaccinating and protecting their kids!
Anti-Vax Responses to New Vaccine Laws
Not all of them though…
Some are fighting the laws.
In Maine, it appears that one group submitted more than enough signatures to get on a ballot that could overturn their new vaccine law that eliminated non-medical exemptions.
How did they do it?
There are many reports that the folks gathering signatures in Maine misled people into signing.
When you actually look at the petition that the vaccine choice in Maine used, it is easy to see that it is basically a list of anti-vaccine talking points that often scare and mislead parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids, including that Maine’s new vaccine law:
- Eliminates parents’ ability to decide what’s best for their children. – Vaccine mandates don’t force parents to vaccinate their kids. They still have a choice, even if they don’t like what their choices which no longer include sending their intentionally unvaccinated kids to school.
- Will harm, not help, public health. – Getting more kids vaccinated and protected does not harm public health!
- Strips parents of their right to religious freedom. – Which religions are against getting kids vaccinated and protected?
- Prevents a minority group from receiving an education. – Since parents have a choice on whether or not to vaccinate their kids, it is not the schools or the state that is preventing intentionally unvaccinated kids from receiving an education.
- Those who need medical exemptions cannot get them. – Every state allows medical exemptions. Under some new vaccine laws, unscrupulous health care providers can no longer make up their own rules for what counts as a medical exemption though.
- Our childhood vaccination rates are high. – Fortunately, vaccination rates are generally high in most of the country, but that’s not the issue. It is the clusters of unvaccinated kids that are typically the problem. At the Maine Coast Waldorf School, for example, only 38% of kids had the recommended two doses of MMR!
- Unvaccinated children are not a risk to the immunocompromised. – This is simply not true.
- Vaccines DO cause injury. – Yes, but the risks from vaccines are small, unlike vaccine-preventable diseases, they very rarely cause severe injuries.
What are they doing in other states?
In New York, they have tried to equate their choice to not vaccinate their kids, which is what’s actually keeping those kids from going to school, with efforts to desegregate schools in the 1960s.
And while some kids are now being homeschooled, some parents continued to send their intentionally unvaccinated kids to school, right up until the deadline to get vaccinated and protected, hoping their lawsuits would succeed and keep their kids in school.
They haven’t so far.
And they likely won’t in the future.
Other parents, when they lose one exemption, simply try to substitute it with another.
Can’t get a personal belief exemption anymore? Try a religious exemption. And when they take that away, go with a medical exemption.
Of course, that doesn’t work once schools no longer accept inappropriate medical exemptions.
What will work?
Getting their kids vaccinated and protected.
Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and are obviously necessary.
More on Responses to New Vaccine Laws
- Do Anti-Vaccine Parents Ever Change Their Minds?
- Answers To Frequently Asked Questions About Immunizations
- What Are the Pro and Con Arguments for Vaccines?
- Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
- 100 Myths About Vaccines
- Reactions to SB 276 Passing the Assembly
- More Questions to Help You Become a Vaccine Skeptic
- Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation Removing Non-Medical Exemptions from School Vaccination Requirements
- NY School Vaccination Requirements
- Washington MMR Vaccine Exemption Law Change 2019
- 2018-2019 Maine School Immunization Assessment Report
- Maine Immunization Rate Assessment Reports
- Vaccination rates continue to drop among Maine schoolchildren
- Anti-vaccine campaign submits signatures they lied to get
- Editorial: It’s time to remove nonmedical opt-out for measles vaccinations (Ohio)
- Editorial: The religious exemption to vaccines is being abused. It’s time to get rid of it. (Connecticut)
- How Far Would You Go to Avoid Vaccinating Your Child?
- Deadline for unvaccinated students arrives in New York schools
- Anti-vaccine protesters are likening themselves to civil rights activists
- New York vaccination opponents say medical exemptions aren’t recognized