JACKSON, Ms. – Mississippi initiates court-ordered personnel transfer process cite religious beliefs Seek exemptions from government-required vaccinations that children must receive before they attend daycare or school.
Mississippi is one of the poorest states and has high rates of health problems such as obesity and heart disease. But it’s been praised by health officials for years for having some of the highest childhood immunization rates against diseases like polio, measles and mumps.
In April, US District Judge Sul Ozerden ordered Mississippi to join most other states in allowing religious exemptions from vaccinations for children.
His decision comes amid a lawsuit filed last year by several parents who said their religious beliefs led them to keep their children unvaccinated and barred from Mississippi schools. The lawsuit, funded by the Texas-based Informed Consent Action Network, argued that Mississippi’s lack of a religious exemption for child vaccination violates the US Constitution.
Ozerden gave the state until Saturday to comply with its order. The Mississippi State Department of Health’s website will release information that day about how people can apply for the religious exemptions, according to court filings prepared on behalf of Dr. Daniel Edney, the state health official.
“To be clear: Dr. Edney does not support the plaintiffs’ views on vaccination or their arguments that the School Vaccines Act is unconstitutional,” wrote Michael J. Bentley, an attorney representing the health official.
Bentley wrote that Edney also disagreed with Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s position that the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 2014 statute, provides a religious exception to the school vaccination law, “while respecting her authority to comment on issues.” .” Mississippi Law.”
“According to Dr. Edney, the school immunization law is constitutional as enacted by the Mississippi legislature with no religious exemption,” Bentley wrote.
In Mississippi, people are already allowed to apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption for a series of five vaccinations required for enrolling children in public or private schools. The vaccinations are against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough; Polio; Hepatitis; Measles, mumps and rubella; and chickenpox. Mississippi does not require COVID-19 vaccinations.
Under Mississippi’s new religious waiver process, state health officials cannot question the sincerity of a person’s religious beliefs. The exemption must be granted if the forms are properly filled out, Bentley wrote.
“The process is designed to respect the beliefs of parents who oppose vaccinating their children for religious reasons while protecting the health of Mississippi’s 440,000 K-12 students and preserving the track records Mississippi has made in preventing cases from becoming more debilitating and deadly.” Illnesses in school has scored kids,” Bentley wrote.
According to the lawsuit, some of the plaintiffs have homeschooled their children, while others have family or work ties in Mississippi but live in other states that allow religious exceptions to child immunizations.
Only States with no religious or personal belief exceptions According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there were school vaccination requirements in California, Connecticut, Maine, Mississippi, New York and West Virginia.
Mississippi once had a religious exemption for childhood vaccinations, but that was overturned in 1979 by a state court judge who ruled that vaccinated children have a constitutional right not to associate with their unvaccinated peers, the lawsuit states.
In recent years, Mississippi lawmakers have rejected proposals to allow religious exemptions for childhood vaccinations, with health officials saying further exemptions could lead to the spread of preventable diseases.
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