Exemptions change
New law allows children to avoid immunizations
Laura McFarland

FORT WORTH — When Ramona Greene’s daughter, Chelsea, was in kindergarten, the school nurse sent some of her classmates home because their shot records were not current. Greene, a Fort Worth resident, praised the decision.

“I didn’t have a problem with that, even though I was friendly with the parents that were having to come and pick up their children,” she said. “I was in complete agreement with the school’s nurse that if your child’s shot record is not current, your child has to go home until the shot record becomes current.”

Now almost 7, Chelsea is a second-grader at T.A. Sims Elementary in Fort Worth. And though Chelsea is up-to-date on her immunizations, her mother said she is still concerned about what health risks her daughter could be exposed to at school, partly because of a state law that went into effect Sept. 1.

Under the new law, parents can get their child exempted from immunizations required by the state for “reasons of conscience.”

“This law gives a parent or guardian the option of saying ‘I don’t want my child vaccinated for reasons of conscience,’ and they do not have to be specific about what those reasons are,” said Doug McBride, press officer for the Texas Department of Health.

Previously only children with religious or medical reasons could be exempted from getting immunizations before they entered public or private child-care facilities, elementary or secondary schools, and colleges and universities, McBride said.

Out of 81,000 students in the Fort Worth Independent School District last year, 33 students were exempted from immunizations for medical reasons and 28 for religious reasons, Jackie Thompson, the district’s health director, said in a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

McBride said the Texas health department has received about 1,800 requests for the affidavit required to apply for the conscientious objection exemption. Those requests represent about 2,900 children, which is a relatively low amount, he said.

“There are 3.8, almost 4 million students in Texas elementary and secondary schools, and even if all 2,900 of those kids that we’ve received requests from are in secondary and elementary schools, it’s a low percentage of the total number,” he said.

But the more students who are vaccinated, the lower the chances of an outbreak of a preventable disease, said Marilyn Hallam, assistant to the director of Health Services at Texas Christian University.

“I think that we have reached a point where many of the preventable diseases are preventable for the very reason that we mandate immunizations,” she said. “If we decide for lots of unknown reasons – ‘just because I don’t want to have them’ - we’re going to see an increase in measles, chicken pox (and) whooping cough.

“Things that have been unknown to us, almost, for a period of time are now going to start reappearing.”
There have been 3,286 cases of vaccine-preventable diseases, including chicken pox, whooping cough and Hepatitis B, in Texas in 2003 through Nov. 15, according to the health department Web site.

Julie O’Neil, assistant professor of journalism at TCU, said she is not happy with the new law, but she wants to wait and see how many people apply for the exemption and then see how the number of preventable diseases is affected.

O’Neil said she stays current with the vaccinations of her two children, 3-year-old Molly and 5-month-old John Michael, who will both probably attend FWISD schools when they are older. She said she is never really worried about the immunizations because her children have reacted well to them and she recognizes the importance of the vaccines.

“There’s a risk in everything you take in life, including vaccinations, but I think, overall, more good is served by having the vaccinations than by not having them,” O’Neil said.

If one child is immunized and the child next to him is not, he is all right because he’s already been protected through the immunization that he has, Hallam said. She said a child can get these preventable diseases even with the vaccine, but it would be a much less severe case.

“It’s just like the flu vaccine — people can still get the flu, but it will not be nearly as severe as if they had not had the vaccine at all,” Hallam said.

Parents who want to use the conscientious objection exemption must request an affidavit in writing from the Texas Department of Health, complete the form, have it notarized and supply it to the school, according to a health department news release.