CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Lawrence Barrio moved his family from Florida to West Virginia earlier this year. In Florida, he obtained a religious exemption for school vaccinations for his children with little difficulty.
“It doesn’t matter exactly what your formulation of the words are for your religious reason,” Barrio said. “What matters is that if you feel that your conscience and religion is informing you not to vaccinate your kids …that’s all that’s required.”
He expected a similar process in his new state. Instead, his daughters were denied entry to school and removed from their sports teams the day before classes started. That came after Gov. Patrick Morrissey issued an executive order in January calling for schools to accept the religious exemptions.
“I don’t understand how they could justify dismissing an executive order by the governor or his instruction and then the Bureau of Health.”
Soon after the order, lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 460, which would have written those exemptions into state law. The bill passed the Senate but failed in the House of Delegates. With no legislative resolution, the dispute has shifted to the courts.
Marisa Jackson’s 10-year-old son, Maxwell, has a rare genetic disorder that makes him especially vulnerable to illness. Jackson was a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of West Virginia and Mountain State Justice. The case challenged how the Bureau for Public Health was granting nonmedical exemptions.
One of the lawsuits was filed in Kanawha County but was dismissed on a procedural issue. Within weeks, Jackson and another parent refiled the case, this time with a restraining order.
“Our case, the Jackson Hess case, goes through what is the right way to do it. What’s the process? Who can issue exemptions and what basis needs to be shown for them to issue it,” Aubrey Sparks, an attorney with the ACLU of West Virginia, said.
If religious exemptions become permissible in West Virginia, Jackson says she’s not sure he son will be able to stay in school.
“I can say with certainty that if there was something going on at the school… like an outbreak… that I would have to pull him out of school and then he is going to have to be isolated because the only other option for him to be educated would be in a home setting,.” she said.
Doctors are also weighing in. Dr. Lisa Costello, a pediatric hospitalist at WVU Medicine Children’s, supports only medical exemptions, emphasizing the role vaccines play in protecting kids.
“By having strong public health policies, such as requiring immunizations as a condition for school entry and having those who are medically able to be immunized be immunized, we're really creating an environment that helps protect the individual child as well as the entire classroom and community.”
Costello says that without vaccines, schools could see an increase in the spread of disease.
This article was adapted from a television news show story using AI. All reporting, facts and quotes from sources are original. AI was only used to assist with formatting and style for a digital platform.