Anti-vaccine movement poses threat to public health progress

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Credit: AP/Melissa Majchrzak
Next week, some Long Island moms and other advocates who oppose vaccination and vaccine mandates will head to Washington to attend the first gathering of the new Religious Liberty Commission, which President Donald Trump created via executive order last month.
What does “religious liberty” have to do with vaccination?
For parents seeking to avoid vaccination requirements for their children — everything.
This comes at an already-disturbing time. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is ousting every member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which since 1964 has recommended formulations and use of vaccines. These steps could mark the beginning of the end for a key pillar of public health: the nation’s long-standing trust in and adherence to the importance of vaccination.
That view may seem extreme. But this threat is real.
Six years ago this week, New York State banned religious exemptions from vaccine requirements for schoolchildren. It was an important policy shift amid a measles outbreak that infected hundreds of people, predominantly in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Rockland County.
Most religions, including Judaism, don’t prohibit vaccination; most encourage the protective shots. But many parents used the religious exemption as cover to avoid vaccination even without legitimate religious reasons and to keep their unvaccinated children in school, in turn posing potential harm to those who were immunocompromised or couldn’t otherwise receive the shots.
Eliminating the exemption was a high point for public health in New York. But since then, the anti-vax movement, especially on Long Island, has gained traction and now hopes to again use religion as its cover. Among the Religious Liberty Commission’s listed areas of concern are “conscience protections in the health care field and concerning vaccine mandates” and “parents’ authority to direct the care, upbringing and education of their children.” Local parents and advocates hope the commission will force New York and other states with religious exemption bans to undo them under the guise of religious freedom. Among those heading to D.C. are former CD1 candidate Cait Corrigan and Blue Point activist Rita Palma, who before 2019 offered a guide to getting a religious exemption.
Some local “vaccine choice” advocates are traveling an alternative path. Long Beach activist John Gilmore, who heads the Autism Action Network, is pushing Albany to broaden New York’s sole remaining vaccine exemption, the medical exemption. Gilmore argues it’s very difficult to obtain one in New York, saying some students have had them pulled due to stricter state standards. He and other advocates support a bill sponsored by State Sen. Monica Martinez that would require schools to accept any medical exemption request signed by a “licensed physician, physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner.”
Both routes lead to a single worrisome point, where students could easily refuse even the most critical and well-established vaccines for once-eradicated diseases like the measles and polio, and still attend school. Long Island’s already-low vaccination rates, and the rate among schoolchildren specifically, would likely drop significantly.
Kennedy’s actions take that further. In removing advisory panel members and making his own picks, Kennedy is violating a pledge not to change the committee that he made to Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who heads the Senate health committee. This isn’t about protecting choice or religious freedom. It’s about control over messaging and decision-making and, ultimately, instituting anti-vaccination policies Kennedy and his supporters have long sought — policies that could damage the health of our children and the nation as a whole.
n COLUMNIST RANDI F. MARSHALL’S opinions are her own.