Eleven of 12 Democratic Senate Finance Committee members called on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign Thursday just before a charged — and at times explosive — committee hearing with the embattled health secretary.

Committee Democrats and two Republicans, both of them physicians, accused Kennedy of peddling misinformation, pressuring officials to rubber stamp policies not based on science and making it harder for Americans to access COVID vaccines. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, called Kennedy a charlatan.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, said he was questioning Kennedy on behalf of “parents and schools and teachers all over the United States of America who deserve so much better than your leadership.”

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire, accused the secretary of denying parents the right to vaccinate their children against COVID.

“You’re making things up to scare people,” Kennedy loudly interrupted. “And it’s a lie.”

Kennedy defended his running of HHS, which was thrust into turmoil after his decision last week to fire the Senate-confirmed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, issue confusing new COVID vaccine guidelines and cut funding for mRNA vaccine research, among other contentious moves. A number of committee Republicans applauded Kennedy for his work, noting he had reduced spending and shifted the agency’s focus to “promoting prevention first.”

During a moment that appeared to confuse senators, Kennedy said he had fired former CDC head Susan Monarez because he asked her, “Are you a trustworthy person?” and she replied, “No.” Several in response cited Monarez’s claim that that she’d sign off on forthcoming recommendations from a newly installed vaccine committee. Kennedy refuted these claims and repeatedly accused Monarez of lying.

He also appeared to double down on his assertions that childhood vaccines and autism are linked, citing

Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, attempted to push the secretary on his past statements: “When were you lying, sir? When you told this committee that you were not anti-vax, or when you told Americans that there’s no safe and effective vaccine?”

“Both things are true,” he replied.

Kids are heading back to school this fall as the country experiences some of the lowest childhood vaccine rates and highest levels of public health uncertainty in known memory.

Amid the swirling currents: the defunding of vaccine research and competing messaging around COVID shots for children; a rare federal attempt to influence a West Virginia legal battle over childhood vaccine exemptions; and a dramatic leadership struggle within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that could solidify more power in the hands of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Kennedy is seen by many as the destabilizing figure at the center of the chaos, and 2025-26 will be the first full school year that the longtime vaccine skeptic is in charge of childhood public health. The controversial secretary, who earned a this week from every one of his predecessors going back to the Carter administration, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Finance Committee later today.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, who heads the Senate health committee and played a pivotal role in Kennedy’s confirmation, has of the CDC amid the turmoil, citing children’s health as his major concern.

On Wednesday, three West Coast governors announced they’d be forming to establish their own vaccine recommendations, protesting those of the CDC, which, they said in a statement, “has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences.”

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington said the alliance will “ensure residents remain protected by science, not politics.” Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his surgeon general announced their intention Wednesday to become , including for schoolchildren.

As the states splintered on vaccines, 1,000 current and former HHS staff released formally calling for Kennedy’s resignation, writing that he “continues to endanger the nation’s health.” The group condemned a series of actions including the of the Senate-confirmed CDC director, Kennedy’s refusal to be briefed by CDC experts on vaccine-preventable diseases and his “misleading claims” about physician and hospital liability for following vaccine guidance that he opposes.

They also denounced the Food and Drug Administration’s recent of emergency use authorization for COVID vaccines, which — alongside the the CDC’s newest recommendations — will likely make it significantly harder for children, especially those under 5 years old, to access the shots. Recently released FDA memos show its vaccine chief overruled staff scientists who, citing high hospitalization rates among young children with COVID, recommended a wide range of age groups continue to get the vaccine, according to .

All of this, partnered with Kennedy’s long history of disseminating scientific misinformation, including the debunked claim that vaccines can cause autism, has led to great confusion for parents just as their kids are returning to school. Kennedy has promised to later this month, which he said would expose “what the environmental toxins are that are causing” autism.

“There is a lot of inaccurate information right now coming from the highest levels of HHS,” said Kawsar Talaat, physician and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose research focuses on vaccines. “I would think that for family members, who don’t necessarily have expertise, it would be hard to know who to trust, and it will certainly contribute to a decline in vaccination rates.”

Indeed, during the 2024-25 school year, immunization rates among kindergarteners across the country decreased for all reported vaccines, according to the latest available . Rates for the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine fell to 92.5% from approximately 95% pre-pandemic. And of states had MMR vaccination rates below the 95% needed for herd immunity, with some, like Idaho at 78.5%, well below it. 

As these numbers were falling, exemptions to mandatory vaccines for school-aged kids were on the rise, increasing to 3.6% nationally, driven by non-medical exemptions and up from in the 2019-20 school  year. Seventeen states — spiking from pre-pandemic — reported exemptions exceeding 5%, threatening herd immunity.

Lynn Nelson is the president of and has seen this uncertainty and hesitancy firsthand.

“We get a lot of families who are confused,” she said, “who may have immunized children until this point and now are having second thoughts about it.”

Increasingly, conflicted parents are bringing messages they’ve heard from HHS or Kennedy himself to their school nurses, wondering why they contradict what they’ve historically been told by their pediatricians.

“It tends to be things like, “Well, it sounds like maybe autism is caused by [vaccines]. We want to wait and see,’” Nelson said. 

But as these parents hold off on immunizing their kids, communities remain at heightened risk for infection and outbreak, she added.

And even if medical providers are able to fight the misinformation and have conversations with parents that ultimately lead them to want to vaccinate, some kids might not be able to access the shots, amid funding cuts to public health vaccination clinics in rural areas. 

Vaccine hesitancy also plays out at the district level, since school system leaders are “just as susceptible to misinformation as anyone else” and they often make the decision on whether or not to enforce the policies requiring most children be vaccinated in order to attend school, Nelson said. 

“It’s a question for most of us probably of when — not if — there’s going to be an outbreak.”

Chaos and pushback at the CDC

An already anxious back-to-school season for mandatory immunizations was intensified by the firing of CDC head Susan Monarez on Aug. 27, and her subsequent refusal to leave the post, following a clash over vaccine policy, according to reporting by  

Monarez’s lawyers her removal was “legally deficient,” and said, “the attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: Our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within.”

She has since been replaced by who has no medical training and, during the pandemic, posted conspiracy theories on social media and voiced support for unproven treatments — such as ivermectin, according to reporting by Before being appointed as acting head of the CDC, O’Neill served as a HHS deputy to Kennedy.

At least four other powerful agency leaders some with claiming they were asked to participate in an unscientific vaccine recommendation process. 

My resignation letter from CDC.

Dear Dr. Houry,

I am writing to formally resign from my position as Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), effective August 28, 2025, close of business.…

— DrDemetre (@dr_demetre)

In response, CDC employees — a “clap out” protest to show support for their departing colleagues. An August investigation by revealed how badly the department has been depleted under Kennedy, with at least 20,500 total HHS workers gone since January, including at least 15% of all CDC staff.

Last week’s high-profile exodus comes after a tumultuous month: On Aug. 20, over 750 employees of the CDC and other health agencies signed a rare , imploring Kennedy to stop spreading misinformation. The authors argued his rhetoric contributed to an attack earlier that month on their headquarters by a gunman who fired more than onto the agency’s main campus and appeared to be, at least in part, motivated by COVID

“Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information,” the letter reads. The authors accused Kennedy of sowing public mistrust in the CDC’s workforce; firing critical workers; making false and dangerous claims about mRNA and measles vaccines; and misusing data to falsely claim childhood vaccines are the cause of autism.

HHS did not respond to requests for comment on the confusion surrounding vaccine policies nor on the allegations that inaccurate information is coming out of the agency, eroding faith in its work.

In response to mounting criticism, Kennedy published an op-ed in this week, arguing he was, “restoring public trust in the CDC,” which had been destroyed by “bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep.”

“We have shown what a focused CDC can achieve,” he wrote, citing and defending his response to the measles outbreak, which he said, “was neither ‘pro-vax’ nor ‘antivax.’”

He identified six areas of focus, including investing in the workforce, that he wrote will “restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently signaled its lack of confidence by filing a alongside a number of other health care organizations, arguing Kennedy had violated federal law and made “ unscientific changes to federal vaccine policy” by moving to curb COVID vaccines for young children. The plaintiffs include an immunocompromised mother to two teenage boys who were denied COVID vaccines. 

They’ve also issued their own guidance, the COVID vaccines for all young children. Kennedy responded to this move on X, calling it a “list of corporate-friendly vaccine recommendations” and “perhaps, just a pay-to-play scheme.”

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration approved updated COVID vaccines, but with new restrictions: they’ll only be available to people 65 and older or younger people with at least one underlying medical condition that increases their risk for severe disease. In a post on Kennedy said the Moderna vaccine had been approved for use in those older than 6 months, Pfizer in those older than 5 years and Novavax in those older than 12 years.

“These vaccines are available for all patients who choose them after consulting with their doctors,” he wrote, though it’s still not clear who will have the shots

While healthy children and adults without underlying conditions were eligible to receive the vaccine historically, HHS claimed, “Today’s decision does not affect access to these vaccines for healthy individuals.” 

“HHS is not limiting access,” a department spokesperson wrote to ����Ӱ��. “The COVID vaccine remains available for anyone who chooses it in consultation with their healthcare provider.”

In response to a request for clarification to determine if this means children and healthy adults under 65 can access the vaccine with permission from a doctor, the agency spokesperson just repeated the same language.

All of this back and forth has contributed to confusion for parents, as increase in many areas of the country. Recent by KFF, a nonpartisan, nonprofit health policy organization, found that half (48%) of parents are not sure if federal health agencies are currently recommending that healthy children receive a COVID vaccine this fall or not.

A federal push for vaccine exemptions

While many eyes are on the debate surrounding COVID vaccines, researchers and physicians also remain laser focused on measles, following this year’s outbreak, which infected over across 41 states and killed two unvaccinated children. 

Case numbers this year are already the they’ve been since the disease was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. Some 92% of reported infections have involved a person who was unvaccinated or whose status was unknown and 13% have resulted in hospitalization.

Throughout the outbreaks, Kennedy has the severity and has been in his support of the MMR vaccine.

In a recent and highly unusual move for the federal government, Kennedy expressed his support for a philosophical and religious exemption to mandatory vaccines for school-aged kids in West Virginia. 

Up until a recent opened the door for broader exemptions, the state had some of the nation’s strictest childhood vaccination policies and was one of only five that exclusively allowed for medical exemptions. Already around 500 requests for religious and philosophical exemptions have been submitted — and approved — for the 2025-26 school year, according to records obtained by ����Ӱ��, though those numbers are not yet reflected in the CDC’s data.

According to that data, Georgia and Michigan saw exemptions rise faster than any other state — by 1.2 percentage points year-over-year — driven almost exclusively by non-medical exemptions. They were closely followed by Idaho, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Utah.

In West Virginia, conflict between the governor’s order and current state law has and over how officials should proceed. Beginning on Aug. 21, the federal government publicly weighed in, apparently attempting to tip the scales. 

First, HHS’s Office for Civil Rights sent to all West Virginia health departments participating in the federal which provides vaccines to millions of kids who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them. The communication stated that if they did not comply with the governor’s executive order, they would no longer be eligible to participate in the program. 

Richard Hughes, a George Washington University law professor and leading vaccine law expert, called this move an unheard-of “implied threat.”

“I just think that’s got to be unprecedented for a federal agency — the Office for Civil Rights — to go and pick out a state law and say, ‘You need to comply with that.’ That just boggles my mind,” Hughes said.

“What I worry about is that we’re about to see a push at the federal and the state level encouraging religious exemptions,” he added.

Hours after Kennedy testified before the Finance Committee, the Office for Civil Rights announced they had issued similar letters to all states participating in the Vaccines for Children program stating they “must respect state religious and conscience exemptions from vaccine mandates.”

Earlier, the health secretary had posted on , voicing his support for the West Virginia governor and urging state legislators to comply.

Del Bigtree, CEO of the, an anti-vaccine advocacy group, told ����Ӱ��, “We’re happy that Robert Kennedy Jr. and HHS are supporting Gov. Morrissey. I think this is a pivotal moment for this conversation in this nation.”

Other states have joined West Virginia in pursuit of such bills, according to Caitlin Gilmet, the communications director for , a pro-vaccine advocacy organization formerly called SAFE Communities Coalition.

“We’re seeing medical freedom bills in a number of states. Idaho, Montana, Tennessee, Texas, Florida are all kind of national bellwethers where those parental rights bills are being tested,” she said. 

Kids in those states are particularly vulnerable to “new exemption policies, weak enforcement and then the conditions to create exemption clusters,” she added, which can then lead to outbreaks.

A number of these types of bills contain language or policies that are unclear, leading to more confusion and conflicting guidance. 

Further complicating the issue is Kennedy’s recent firing of all members of the group responsible for making recommendations on the safety, efficacy and clinical need for vaccines to the CDC as well as the cancellation of $500 million in federal grants to mRNA vaccines, the technology used to develop the COVID vaccination. 

In a post on , he claimed the vaccines are ineffective and cause “more risks than benefits,” while “paradoxically… prolong[ing] pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccines” — assertions that are echoed by activists like Bigtree, yet have been widely debunked by researchers and medical professionals.

“It is incredibly misleading, not to mention just false, to say that the vaccines are more harmful than they are beneficial,” said Talaat, the Johns Hopkins professor. “They are incredibly beneficial. They’ve saved millions of lives.”

While COVID vaccines were the first on the market to use mRNA technology, others were in development before the funding cancellation, including ones to fight cancer and bird flu.

“[Bird flu] could be the next pandemic,” Talaat said, “and they canceled the contracts to create mRNA vaccines against this virus.”

“It’s really important,” she added, “that people understand that, unfortunately, this is not a time where we can trust those in the highest positions of power at HHS.”

Two groups filed a lawsuit against West Virginia’s state Department of Health, its Bureau for Public Health and agency leaders on Friday, challenging Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s January executive order, which opened the door for religious and philosophical exemptions to mandatory school vaccination policies. The American Civil Liberties Union’s West Virginia chapter and Mountain State Justice filed the suit in Kanawha County Circuit Court on behalf of two parents with immunocompromised children, according to reporting by

Just over 330 requests for religious and philosophical exemptions to West Virginia’s school vaccine policy have been submitted — and approved — for this school year and 35 have been granted for the coming year, according to records obtained by ����Ӱ��.

The newly approved religious and philosophical exemptions already outpace the 203 permanent medical exemptions granted in the state over the past decade, at one time the only exemptions allowed in West Virginia.

Before January, when Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed an opening the door for broader exemptions, the state had some of the nation’s strictest childhood vaccination policies. 

The loosening of those policies is occurring amid a deadly measles outbreak that has infected over  across 30 states and despite state legislators rejecting a bill in March which would have codified religious exemptions into state law. The conflict between the governor’s order and the legislature’s action has over how West Virginia officials should proceed and could ultimately lead to legal action between the two branches of government. 

In the meantime, the West Virginia Department of Health is granting religious and philosophical exemptions based on the governor’s order and shared those numbers in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by ����Ӱ��.

No requests for the newer category of exemptions has been denied, the department said. In contrast, 125 requests for medical exemptions to mandatory school vaccines have been rejected since 2015. Temporary medical exemptions have been granted to 288 West Virginia children in the past decade.

Richard Hughes, a George Washington University law professor and leading vaccine law expert, said the 331 religious and philosophical exemptions sought in just five months represent a “drastic, dramatic increase in the request for exemptions, and that’s going to potentially have public health consequences.”

He added the state appears to be approving them liberally and without real scrutiny.

“Clearly, when you open the door to these types of exemptions, people use them,” he said. “There has been evidence before that when only religious exemption is available, people request them without any really sincerely held belief. This just opens the floodgates.”

While the 331 students who have received exemptions represent a very small percentage of the approximately enrolled in public schools across the state, experts fear the number will continue to rapidly climb, especially at the start of the coming school year.

“You see how fast we approved those? Hundred percent approved … So if we keep allowing an executive order that goes against West Virginia code, it’s going to change the vaccination rate …” said Sissy Price, a registered nurse who serves as co-director of West Virginia Families for Immunization. “And it’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen, it’s a matter of when.”

Experts also emphasized the importance of knowing which regions or schools in West Virginia the exempted students come from to better understand the impact on herd immunity and to allow parents — especially those of immunocompromised students — to make informed decisions about where to send their kids to school.

Despite the governor’s insistence that the state collect that information, an official at the Health Department wrote in an email to ����Ӱ��, “Nobody in the Department of Health or the Bureau for Public [Health] tracks that.”

“There’s a failure of government there,” said Northe Saunders, executive director of the pro-vaccine . “There’s a failure of making sure that parents can make the best informed decision that they can if we don’t know what immunization rates are like at the school level.”

The governor’s office and the Department of Health did not respond to requests for comment.

So far, West Virginia has no reported measles cases. Two children, both of whom were unvaccinated, have died during the current outbreak, whose case numbers have already surpassed 2024’s total and mark the second-highest number of confirmed cases in a year since the disease was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. Some 96% of reported infections have involved a person who was unvaccinated or whose status was unknown and 13% have resulted in hospitalization. 

In issuing his Jan. 14 executive order, Morrisey relied on an interpretation of the state’s 2023 Equal Protection for Religion Act.

He argued that the law as it stood “forces” some West Virginians “to choose between their religious belief and their children’s fundamental right to public education,” and directed the commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health and the state health officer to establish a process for parents to object. The executive order noted that a “written, signed objection” was sufficient.

Based on the legislature voting down the measure to codify the broader exemption category, state schools Superintendent Michele Blatt issued a memo earlier this month to county superintendents recommending that students not be allowed to attend school next year without required immunizations, regardless of requests for religious exemptions. 

“We are faced with the fact that state law has not been changed by the Legislature and there is no religious exemption provided for in West Virginia law,” Blatt wrote, according to reporting by

But, by the end of the day she rescinded the memo, she had done so “at the Governor’s request.” 

Morrisey then issued May 9 saying that despite the legislative hurdle, the executive order “still stands, and I have no intention of rescinding it.” He further clarified the process to receive an exemption: Each year, parents or guardians must send a signed letter with basic information including their child’s name, date of birth and mailing address. Notably, the letter does not need to include the reason for the requested exemption.

In the wake of this confusion, some school districts have begun seeking about how to respond. 

West Virginia is not an outlier in its quest to allow parents to opt their children out of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine that is a requirement in all 50 states for children entering child care and schools. 

“It goes towards the general erosion of vaccine policy,” said Saunders. “We’ve seen these kinds of small, incremental changes that are eroding vaccine policy in states across the country. There are still school entry requirements in West Virginia — just like there are in every single state — but this is one other chink in the armor of strong vaccine policy driving strong immunization rates.”

Childhood vaccination since COVID, and there’s fear that decline will accelerate now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic, is heading the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. He initially in late February, and on May 14, at his in Congress since his confirmation, he waffled on the importance of vaccines.

When asked if he would vaccinate a child of his own against measles today “Probably for measles. What I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant.”

He continued, “I don’t want to make it seem like I’m being evasive, but I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.”

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration, which falls under HHS, released guidance for COVID vaccines, saying they may require additional studies before approving the shots for healthy Americans younger than 65.

Candice Lefeber, executive director of West Virginia’s chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said this move played into one of her fears: “I think the administration is going to make it harder for vaccines to be available.”

“Not only are we not going to require it, but then access to vaccines would be compromised,” she continued. “It’s just really disheartening for science and for our country — and we’re in big trouble.”

The West Virginia House Monday rejected its version of a Senate bill that would have loosened school vaccine requirements and expanded exemptions, voting it down

The bill’s defeat came after the House twice amended the Senate’s version of the legislation, first to remove both the philosophical and religious exemptions approved by the Senate and then to and to allow private and parochial schools to set their own mandatory vaccine requirements.

“The pro-vaccine messaging won out,” Northe Saunders, executive director of the pro-vaccine , told ����Ӱ�� Monday.

West Virginia now has among the country’s strictest regulations governing the immunizations required for children entering child care and schools, allowing for medical exemptions only. It’s unclear what might come next.

While the House’s vote effectively killed the current legislation, over a dozen other vaccine-related bills have been introduced in the West Virginia legislature and the governor signed an executive order in January establishing the religious and philosophical exemptions that House members rejected.

Saunders said time may be running out for the other vaccine-related bills to move forward during this legislative session.

An amendment that would give West Virginia parents much greater leeway to exempt their children from mandated school vaccinations was deleted from a House bill at the last minute this week, but the prospect of far fewer students in the state getting immunized remains strong.

As written, the would still expand and loosen requirements for medical exemptions for students, making them “the broadest … in the country,” one advocate said. The religious and philosophical exemptions that were struck from the House version of the legislation could also be reintroduced and, while it doesn’t carry the same force of law, Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s January order establishing similarly far-reaching exemptions is also hanging in the balance.

Historically, West Virginia has had some of the nation’s strictest childhood vaccination policies and the current move to soften them is occurring against a deadly measles outbreak that has infected in 15 states and taken the life of one school-age child in Texas. 

“It’s hard to wrap your head around why we would do this right now — or anytime,” said Candice Lefeber, executive director of West Virginia’s chapter of the . “But at such heightened alertness with measles spreading in our country, it should be a wake-up call. And unfortunately, I don’t think that’s happening,”

West Virginia is not an outlier in its quest to allow parents to opt their children out of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine that is a requirement in all 50 states for children entering child care and schools. 

On Wednesday, Idaho lawmakers passed a that would significantly broaden an existing law banning COVID vaccine mandates to include mandates on any “medical treatment.” If the governor signs it, the bill would apply to public and private schools as well, making Idaho the first state in the country to remove all mandatory school vaccination requirements.

Childhood vaccination since COVID, and there’s fear that decline will accelerate now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic, is heading the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. He initially in late February, and in a March 4 seemed to link the ongoing outbreak and child fatality to malnutrition and poor health while pointing to unproven treatments, such as cod oil.

“The best thing Americans can do is to keep themselves healthy,” Kennedy said in the interview. “It is very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy, well-nourished person.”

Three months in, the number of measles cases has already surpassed 2024’s total and in the 15 states where it’s spread, 95% of infections have involved a person who was unvaccinated or whose status was unknown. Three of those states border West Virginia, although, so far, the Mountain State has no reported cases. 

‘We just want the policy left alone’

The latest House bill still has a more wide-ranging medical exemption that also protects health care providers who grant them “in good faith” from civil liability, except in cases of “gross negligence or willful misconduct.” 

It also includes no enforcement mechanism from a government oversight body nor is there guidance as to what qualifies someone for a medical exemption. 

Northe Saunders, executive director of the pro-vaccine , fears this might lead to bad actors writing “bogus” exemptions. Saunders’ group, which is based in Portland, Maine, opened a West Virginia chapter in February after local advocates asked for their help amid the exemptions push.

“We’re glad that the religious and philosophical exemptions were not part of the bill that came out of committee,” said Saunders, who believes the measles outbreak was a factor in their being cut, “but we expect [attempts to modify the bill] going forward.” 

Saunders said his organization is tracking an additional 20 vaccine-related bills in the West Virginia legislature. And, across 20 states, 47 bills have been introduced which would add or broaden vaccine exemptions.

Parents across the country are able to apply for exemptions if their child is unable to get vaccinated for medical reasons. Most states also have religious exemptions, and 20 have some form of leaving a varied landscape. 

West Virginia is currently one of only five states that don’t allow any exemptions, beyond medical ones. Last school year, they had the for four of the major mandated vaccines, significantly outperforming national averages. Almost all kindergarteners there — 98.3% — had received both doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. 

The state also had the lowest rate of exemption, with less than 0.1% of kindergarteners being exempt from one or more vaccines. And it was the only state that supported Donald Trump for president in November that did not see an average rise in official exemptions. 

That could change, depending on the fate of the pending legislation and the governor’s executive order.

“The current policy as is, is something that is highly favored among myself and my colleagues,” said Andrea Lauffer, an internal medicine doctor and pediatrician at WVU Medicine – Thomas Memorial Hospital in South Charleston. “We just want the policy left alone.”

Michael Ramey, president of the , noted the role the pandemic has played in the current vaccine skepticism. He said that while his organization does not hold a position on the safety or efficacy of vaccines, it stands in support of bills like the one in West Virginia.

“We welcome a move to give parents greater authority to make the decision that’s best for their individual child,” he said. 

The vast majority of Americans — 88% — believe the benefits of the childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella outweighs the risks, compared with just 10% who say the risks outweigh the benefits, according to a 2023 Seventy percent of Americans say healthy children should have to be vaccinated to attend school, down from 82% in 2019. And the share of parents who think they should be able to decide against vaccination is up 12 percentage points from four years ago, to 28%.

This shift is being driven by Republicans, 57% of whom now support vaccination requirements — down from 79% in 2019.

‘The heat is on’

The debate over vaccine mandates in West Virginia is not new, but “this year, definitely, the heat is on, for sure, at a higher temperature,” said Sissy Price, a registered nurse who serves as co-director of .

Last year, former Gov. Jim Justice vetoed a bill which would have allowed private and parochial schools to set their own vaccination policies. Meanwhile, Morrisey signed his executive order creating religious and philosophical exemptions on his first full day in office.

The governor wrote that current mandatory vaccine laws force West Virginians who have objections “to choose between their religious belief and their children’s fundamental right to public education.” The order, he said, was based on his interpretation of the Equal Protection for Religion Act, signed by Justice in 2023. 

The pending legislation was meant to clarify and codify his order. Even if the bill’s final version does not include religious and philosophical exemptions, the governor’s executive order would still stand, said Richard Hughes, a George Washington University law professor and leading vaccine law expert. 

While the ability to set new laws lies only with the legislature, the governor does have the ability to interpret those laws, which is what his executive order does, Hughes said.

If the executive order is not in line with what the legislature passes, however, it would remain vulnerable to court challenges.

“The governor could be checked by the courts on this interpretation,” he said.

Introduced Feb. 13, would have allowed parents to simply provide a written statement to exempt their child from vaccines for religious or philosophical reasons and applied to public, private and parochial schools.

In addition to loosening the medical exemption process and protecting medical professionals from disciplinary actions, it would also eliminate the position of state immunization officer and no longer require schools to report a violation if an unvaccinated child without an exemption attempted to enroll.  

At a Feb. 21 committee meeting, both Democratic and Republican senators spoke out in opposition to the bill. Many cited the measles outbreak that began in West Texas in late January as core to their concerns.

GOP Sen. Mike Oliverio read aloud from a letter written by one of his constituents, a retired physician.

“Loosening these requirements will eventually lead to outbreaks of these diseases, including in our children, as the number of vaccinated individuals fall,” he read. “I urge you to vote against this bill for the sake of West Virginia’s children.”

A number of Republican lawmakers also spoke in favor of the bill, which ultimately passed by a 20-12 vote, with two senators absent, before going to the House. 

The House bill that came out of committee this week is now expected to move to the floor, where it will be debated and potentially amended again. If the final House bill that passes still differs from the initial Senate bill, senators will need to either accept the House’s version or head to a conference committee to reconcile the two before sending it on for Morrisey’s signature.