Parents claim religion to avoid vaccines for kids

Even though government-funded studies have found no link between vaccines and autism, loosely organized groups of parents and even popular cultural figures such as radio host Don Imus have voiced concerns. Most of the furor on Internet message boards and Web sites has been about a mercury-based preservative once used in vaccines that some believe contributes to neurological disorders.

Spreading diseases
Unvaccinated children can spread diseases to others who have not gotten their shots or those for whom vaccinations provided less-than-complete protection.

In 1991, a religious group in Philadelphia that chose not to immunize its children touched off an outbreak of measles that claimed at least eight lives and sickened more than 700 people, mostly children.

And in 2005, an Indiana girl who had not been immunized picked up the measles virus at an orphanage in Romania and unknowingly brought it back to a church group. Within a month, the number of people infected had grown to 31 in what health officials said was the nation’s worst outbreak of the disease in a decade.

Rachel Magni, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mother in Newton, Mass., said she is afraid vaccines could harm her children and “overwhelm their bodies.” Even though she attends a Protestant church that allows vaccinations, Magni pursued a religious exemption so her 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son, who have never been vaccinated, could attend preschool.

“I felt that the risk of the vaccine was worse than the risk of the actual disease,” she said.

Lisa Poole / AP Rachel Magni gets a hug from her daughter Stella Magni, 4, at their home in Newton, Mass. Magni pursued a religious exemption so her 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son, who have never been vaccinated, could attend preschool.

Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, one of the leading vaccine skeptic groups, said she discourages parents from pursuing religious exemptions unless they are genuine. Instead, Fisher said, parents should work to change the laws in their states.

“We counsel that if you do not live in a state that has a philosophical exemption, you still have to obey the law,” she said.

Even so, Fisher said, she empathizes with parents tempted to claim the religious exemption: “If a parent has a child who has had a deterioration after vaccination and the doctor says that’s just a coincidence, you have to keep vaccinating this child, what is the parent left with?”

Offit said he knows of no state that enforces any penalty for parents who falsely claim a religious exemption.

“I think that wouldn’t be worth it because that’s just such an emotional issue for people. Our country was founded on the notion of religious freedom,” he said.

In 2002, four Arkansas families challenged the state’s policy allowing religious exemptions only if a parent could prove membership in a recognized religion prohibiting vaccination. The court struck down the policy and the state began allowing both religious and philosophical exemptions.

Religious and medical exemptions, which had been climbing, plummeted, while the number of philosophical exemptions spiked.

In the first year alone, more parents applied for philosophical exemptions than religious and medical exemptions combined. From 2001 to 2004, the total number of students seeking exemptions in Arkansas more than doubled, from 529 to 1,145.

Dr. Janet Levitan, a pediatrician in Brookline, Mass., said she counsels patients who worry that vaccines could harm their children to pursue a religious exemption if that is their only option.

“I tell them if you don’t want to vaccinate for philosophical reasons and the state doesn’t allow that, then say it’s for religious reasons,” she said. “It says you have to state that vaccination conflicts with your religious belief. It doesn’t say you have to actually have that religious belief. So just state it.”

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