Measles across the country have deteriorated to a level not seen in 30 years, and several states have recently taken direct action to implement policies to boost immunization coverage.
At the beginning of 2019, only California, Mississippi, and West Virginia had state laws that only allowed medical exemptions from their school attendance requirements. Now there are 3 more states like that. This year Maine and New York passed laws that limit school vaccine exemptions to medical reasons.
The Maine legislation (which will take effect on September 1, 2021) repeals the state’s religious and philosophical (personal belief) exemptions – but grandfathers in kids that have a non-medical exemption if the parents show that a healthcare provider was consulted about the benefits and risks of vaccinations.
The New York legislation (which took effect immediately) repealed their religious exemption (and has no grandfather clause). NY didn’t have a persona exemption, so all they have now is a medical exemption for school attendance requirements.
Washington state removed their former philosophical exemption for the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that Arizona state government will be working on a “Breakthrough Project” in the coming year that will have a core goal of improving Arizona’s decreasing immunization rates.
“Breakthrough Projects” are something in the “Arizona Management System” (a Governor’s Office Initiative) that is also a state agency scorecard metric. Breakthrough Projects are supposed to: 1) align with an agency performance measure; 2) result in a sustainable success that addresses a stakeholder concern; and 3) require “a substantial design or re-design of a work process documented with an A3 project plan”.
I’ll stay tuned to get more information about what the ADHS has planned for the Breakthrough Project and include it in a future Policy Update.
