WV Senate to vote on passage of bill loosening school vaccine mandates

Yahoo

18-02-2025

Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, proposed an amendment to Senate Bill 460 that would have kept the requirements for the polio vaccine as they are now. The amendment didn't pass. (Will Price | West Virginia Legislative Photography)
After rejecting a handful of amendments to the bill Tuesday, the West Virginia Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on legislation that would loosen the state's school vaccination requirements.
Senate Bill 460 would codify an executive order from Gov. Patrick Morrisey that requires the state to allow religious and moral exemptions to school vaccine requirements, and it changes the process the state has for medical exemptions to the shots.
All 50 states require school children to be vaccinated against a series of infectious diseases like measles and polio. West Virginia has been among five states that has not allowed religious or philosophical exemptions to those requirements. The state has allowed only medical exemptions.
Under Senate Bill 460, families who want a religious exemption would submit a written statement to their school or day care administrator saying that the state vaccine requirements cannot be met because they conflict with the parents' or emancipated child's religious or philosophical beliefs.
Medical exemptions to vaccine laws would be submitted by a child's medical provider and they would not be subject to approval by the state's immunization officer, a position that would be terminated if the bill becomes law.
An amendment by Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, would have allowed the state's private, parochial and religious schools and day cares to keep their vaccination requirements as they are now if doing so is in keeping with their religious beliefs.
'This amendment, all it does is related to private schools that are operated by a church or religious entity or a child care center here in the state to allow for them to continue there to exercise their religious freedom by allowing for the compulsory schedule of immunizations, should that comply with tenets of their faith,' he said.
The amendment is similar to House Bill 5105 the Senate and the House passed last year that would have allowed private and parochial schools to have their own vaccination requirement policies. Former Gov. Jim Justice vetoed that bill at the behest of the state's medical community.
Sen. Laura Wakim Chapman, chair of the Senate Health Committee, opposed the amendment, saying that circuit court decisions about religious freedom for people vs. institutions have been split. She said the Legislature added private and parochial schools to the state's vaccine mandates in 2015.
'Some senators in this very room voted to include private and parochial schools to be mandated, whether they had a religious belief or not, mandated to follow our vaccine laws,' Chapman said. 'But now that we want to protect a child's religious beliefs, now we have a problem? Private schools have assented to this by following our laws for 10 years, whether or not they have a religious issue with them or not.'
While the state's religious schools vary, the catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, with more than 4,600 students in 24 schools statewide, has supported the state's current vaccine laws.
Last year, after the Legislature passed HB 5105, the church said it would keep the requirements for its school the same.
Senators rejected an amendment from minority leader Mike Woelfel that would have kept the requirements for the polio vaccine in particular the way it is.
'What I want to appeal to is your sense of history,' Woelfel said. 'Some of us are old enough to remember polio and the scourge that it imposed on our children. I remember kids in braces, kids paralyzed…
'It's a demon. Polio is a demon. Are we going to stand up and give polio a chance to come back in West Virginia? Polio. I mean, I think we will based upon the votes I've seen. You want to see these children on an iron lung? Can't breathe on their own? You talk about a bill that's going to give us the kind of black mark that we seem to want around here. Go ahead and make polio great again. Give polio another chance.'
Chapman, who chairs the Senate Health Committee, opposed that amendment, saying that vaccine mandates violate students' religious rights.
'I think that when we start parsing out specific vaccines, any one of us could say 'Oh, we don't want X disease to come back.' 'We don't want Y disease to come back.' We're still violating children's religious beliefs,' Chapman said. 'If they have a religious belief against this vaccine, we should not be forcing them to take it.'
Another rejected amendment by Sen. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, would have required the state's schools and day care centers to maintain reports on the number of exempt students or children enrolled in the school or child care center along with the total number of students at the school. The reports would be updated yearly and posted online.
Reporting requirements were originally in the bill requested by Morrisey, but they were amended out in the Senate Health Committee.
Those opposed to the reporting requirements cited concerns over burdensome red tape and privacy. Chapman said people could find out which students are not vaccinated and shame them.
Garcia argued the information could be used by teachers and school personnel who are concerned about vaccination rates in schools to decide whether or not to work at a particular school.
Health experts say high vaccination rates lead to herd immunity that protects people from the spread of disease. Garcia's mother is a school teacher in Marion County who is eligible to retire, and is considering doing so in light of the potential changes to the vaccine laws, he said.
'She's so, so good at her job, and it would be such a shame for the kids, for the other members of that faculty, to lose somebody like that,' Garcia said. 'But she has to think about herself. She has to think about what that means for her future, for her health, for her family.'
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