Arizona Legislature Mulls Bills To Weaken Vaccination Requirements
WILL STONE NPR March 5, 20195:00 AM ET
The measles outbreak in Washington state and elsewhere is prompting some states to look at tightening vaccine requirements for schoolchildren. But not in Arizona. Lawmakers there have been considering bills to make it even easier for parents to get exemptions for their kids from the usual childhood vaccinations.
Supporters of the controversial bills being considered in the Arizona capitol say they are not "anti-vaccine."
Irene Pi, Arizona state director of the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that lobbies against mandatory vaccinations, gave an hour-long presentation before Arizona's House health committee last month.
"Let's have some sensible conversations around this and not impose a narrative on a community of people that are the injured," Pi said during her presentation.
Another bill in the package would make it easier for Arizona parents to opt out, adding a new type of exemption in the state — an exemption based on religious objections.
The chair of the health committee, Rep. Nancy Barto, a Republican, is sponsoring the bills.
"These are not, in my view, anti-vaccination bills," Barto says. Instead, she reasons, the bills are about preserving religious liberty and individual rights.
But doctor after doctor at the hearing warned that the public's health was at stake.
Rep. Becky Nutt, a Republican representing a district in Arizona's southeast corner, said she hears the concerns of the doctors, but still thinks parents should have the right to choose on behalf of their own children.
"We are in the United States of America," she says, "and we have a right to choose for our children — our religion."
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/05/698550613/arizona-legislature-mulls-bills-to-weaken-vaccination-requirements
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