Judge: Mississippi Must Grant Religious Exemptions For Vaccines

Anti-vaccine activists are celebrating in Mississippi after a federal decide struck down the State’s long-standing childhood vaccine necessities for public or non-public faculty attendance, saying the State should permit non secular exemptions like most others already do. Mississippi is considered one of simply six states that solely permits childhood vaccines for medical causes, with no non secular exemptions.

The Texas-based Knowledgeable Consent Motion Community funded the lawsuit, filed in September 2022, arguing that the dearth of non secular exemptions for vaccines violates the First Modification’s ensures of the free train of faith. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of Mississippi Decide Sul Ozerden agreed with ICAN’s argument.

The George W. Bush-appointed decide’s order says that beginning on July 15, the Mississippi State Division of Well being “might be enjoined from implementing (Mississippi’s obligatory vaccination legislation) until they supply an choice for people to request a spiritual exemption from the vaccine requirement.” The State might nonetheless enchantment the ruling, nevertheless.

Mississippi’s obligatory childhood immunization necessities embody a vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; for polio; for hepatitis B; for measles, mumps and rubella; and for chickenpox. The State doesn’t mandate COVID-19 vaccines. Mississippi has the best childhood vaccination price within the nation, a proven fact that MSDH has attributed to strict vaccine legal guidelines. Whereas different states with extra permissive vaccine legal guidelines have reported measles outbreaks lately, Mississippi has not reported a case originating within the state in many years.

The State as soon as allowed non secular exemptions for childhood vaccines, however the Mississippi Supreme Court docket struck that legislation down in its 1979 Brown v. Stone ruling.

“Is it mandated by the First Modification to the US Structure that harmless kids, too younger to determine for themselves, are to be denied the safety towards crippling and demise that immunization offers due to a spiritual perception adhered to by a dad or mum or dad and mom?” the justices wrote on the time.

The reply, they determined, was no.

“The safety of the good physique of college kids attending the general public faculties in Mississippi towards the horrors of crippling and demise ensuing from poliomyelitis or smallpox or from one of many different ailments towards which implies of immunization are identified and have lengthy been practiced efficiently, demand that kids who haven’t been immunized ought to be excluded from the college group till immunization has been completed,” the courtroom’s Brown v. Stone opinion stated.

“… The exception, which would offer for the exemption of youngsters of oldsters whose non secular beliefs battle with the immunization necessities, would discriminate towards the good majority of youngsters whose dad and mom haven’t any such non secular convictions.”

If Decide Ozerden’s ruling stands, it could overrule the 1979 state determination. In an announcement after the choice, ICAN stated it supported the lawsuit “to defend these dad and mom’ constitutional rights.”

“The State of Mississippi affords a secular exemption to these with medical causes that prohibit vaccination, reflecting that it may well accommodate college students which might be unvaccinated,” ICAN stated. “It has merely chosen to not accord an exemption when it’s somebody’s immortal soul {that a} dad or mum believes can be in danger.”

Mississippi Patriots For Vaccine Rights and Medical Freedom, a company that has lengthy opposed vaccine mandates, together with for COVID-19 vaccines, stated in a press launch Wednesday after the ruling that they “are dedicated to the household as the primary establishment, ordained by God, with dad and mom as the ultimate authority over their very own kids.”

Since its institution in 2012, MPVR has pushed for the State to go laws permitting non secular exemptions for vaccines, however these efforts have failed every year, together with throughout the newest legislative session that ended earlier this month. In an announcement Wednesday, the anti-vaccine group known as Mississippi a “radical outlier” in relation to vaccine exemptions and accused Republican state leaders of sustaining “probably the most draconian vaccine legal guidelines within the nation.”

MPVR claimed the “refusal to acknowledge non secular exemptions has needlessly harmed these kids” whose dad and mom have anti-vaccine non secular views “by forcing their dad and mom to homeschool or transfer out of the State, typically immediately throughout the border to attend faculty in a neighboring state whereas in any other case persevering with to dwell their lives in Mississippi.”

The group plans to host a web-based Zoom assembly at 8 p.m. with Mississippi Sen. Chris McDaniel, an Ellisville Republican who’s operating towards incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann for his place on this 12 months’s GOP primaries.

MSDH didn’t grant an interview for this story or tackle whether or not the company plans to enchantment the ruling. Communications Director Liz Sharlot despatched a remark this morning saying “the Mississippi State Division of Well being continues to assist robust immunization legal guidelines that shield our kids.”

“Past that, it’s our long-standing coverage that the Company doesn’t touch upon pending litigation,” she stated.