Who knew? Tightening requirements for waivers for school vaccines increases vaccine uptake [View all]

[HuckleB]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/01/29/who-knew-tightening-up-requirements-for-personal-belief-exemptions-to-school-vaccine-mandates-increases-vaccine-uptake/

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Remember how, starting January 1, 2015, the Michigan Department of Community Health altered the rules regarding requirements for parents to claim personal belief exemptions to vaccine mandates. Basically, it patterned its policy change on California Bill AB 2109, a bill from a few years ago that sought to tighten up requirements for personal belief exemptions (PBEs) in California. AB 2109 required parents seeking PBEs to meet with a physician or other enumerated health care practitioner to receive counseling on the risks of opting their children out of school vaccine requirements. The physician would then have to sign the PBE form to verify that he had counseled the parents. Of course, in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak a year ago, California passed a far stronger measure, SB 277, which, beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, eliminates PBEs in California.

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So has this new rule been effective? A recent news report suggests that it has:

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Statewide, 11,204 students (out of 399,880) had received waivers as of November 2015, for a rate of 2.8%. That compares to the 4.6% rate in November 2014, when 19,152 students (out of 415,891) received waivers.

So, based on this analysis, this temporal correlation between the enforcement of a more stringent standard for vaccine exemptions, the requirement that parents seeking PBEs go to a local health department for 15-30 minute counseling sessions on the benefits and risks of vaccines and, in particular, the risk of forgoing vaccines, has been effective. Statewide, PBE rates have declined markedly since the rule change. In metro Detroit, rates have declined ...

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