Senate health committee advances bill loosening West Virginia’s school immunization laws
westvirginiawatch.com
February 13th, 2025
Bill makes changes to medical exemption process, adds religious exemptions
John Davis and his daughter Hallie testify before the Senate Health Committee on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, about their experience seeking a medical exemption to the state’s school vaccination laws. The family sued the Wood County Board of Education for not allowing her to attend class while seeking the exemption. (Will Price | West Virginia Legislative Photography)
The Senate Health Committee on Thursday advanced a bill loosening the vaccine requirements for West Virginia school children.
Senate Bill 460, as approved, codifies last month’s executive order from Gov. Patrick Morrisey that the state allow religious and moral exemptions for its school-mandated vaccination requirements. The bill also changes the process for getting a medical exemption to an immunization.
All states require school students to be vaccinated for certain infectious diseases. West Virginia has been one of five in the country that do not allow religious or philosophical exemptions to those vaccine requirements. The state only allows medical exemptions.
To acquire a medical exemption, a family’s doctor must indicate which vaccine they’re seeking an exemption for and provide medical documentation to the state immunization officer, who then approves a temporary or permanent exemption or denies the exemption.
Under the new legislation, the state immunization officer position is eliminated, and medical exemption would be at the discretion of the child’s physician.
For a religious exemption, the parent would submit a written statement on a yearly basis saying that they object to one or more of the vaccinations on religious or moral grounds. Those would be approved without question.
Senate Health Committee members on Thursday heard testimony from physicians representing both Marshall University and West Virginia University’s health care system who supported keeping the state’s vaccine laws the way they are.
Dr. Matthew Thomas, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at WVU Children’s Hospital, testified that vaccines rank alongside sanitation and antibiotics as the things that have had the biggest impact on our health and longevity as a species. Vaccines are so effective that many people have never encountered the diseases they help prevent, he said.
“It’s a good thing that we’ve not seen these, because all of these diseases are evil,” Thomas said. “These diseases rob people of their freedom to pursue happiness in the United States and in West Virginia. The child care and school entry immunizations prevent some of the most severe, the most contagious and most life-altering diseases that I’m able to describe and manage. Polio, pertussis and measles and others cause long-lasting effects and disability.”
The committee voted down two amendments from Sen. Tom Takubo, R- Kanawha, a physician. One would have allowed private and parochial schools to develop their own vaccination policies independent of the state’s requirements. The other would have required that families requesting religious exemption to specify which vaccine they have an objection to when submitting their exemption.
They voted down an amendment from Sen. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, that would have added requirements that schools and state-run day care centers report yearly the number of their students who have been granted exemptions for immunizations under each section of the legislation. The reporting requirements were in the original bill requested by the governor, but not the committee’s substitute for the bill.
The committee also heard from Hallie Davis and her father John, a Wood County family who sued the Wood County Board of Education after Hallie was not allowed to attend class while pursuing a medical exemption to a vaccine requirement. Hallie, now 20 and attending college, said she decided to seek the exemption after having an adverse reaction to a vaccine that led her to questioning vaccine safety.
The family was granted an injunction and restraining order that allowed her to return to school. The school board appealed the case to the state Supreme Court of Appeals, John Davis said.
“I think it comes down to your right to choose,”he said. “Do we or do we not have the right to choose? No, there’s not freedom. There’s not freedom. We’ve experienced the medical exemption process and it’s very flawed. It’s very flawed. It’s almost nonexistent.”
He added that during the exemption process, the state immunization officer and the state health officer did not contact the family.
“How did they know what’s best for us is what they put in writing, when they never called any of us?” he said.
They also heard from Aaron Siri, a managing partner of a law firm that specializes in vaccine injury who reportedly petitioned the U.S. health officials to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine.
Siri is reportedly helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the newly confirmed secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a vaccine skeptic, pick health officials for the Trump administration. He also represented Kennedy during his bid for president.
“When the First Amendment speaks of the ability to have freedom of expression, freedom of religion, it means that you should be able to live your convictions and not have the state crush them by, for example, excluding your children from school,” Siri said.
The bill will next go to the full Senate for consideration.
NOTE: The streaming takes a few minutes to begin
FROM: Patient Advocate Bulldog
BREAKING NEWS ALERT
My good Friend John Davis and his daughter Hallie testified at the WV Senate Health Committee Hearing yesterday. Our son was going through the same process at the same time .. we kept close contact with each other ..both my son and Hallie encouraged one another. We were in two different counties. This was and is absolutely criminal !! She stood strong in the midst of attack ! This is the kind of young people we need in this country !! She is being sued as an adult after out of High school! For being allowed to finish High School. The case is in the WV Supreme Court!
PLEASE CALL – 304-558-3660 THE WV STATE BOE and complain about this corrupt Wood County BOE.
Bombard them with complaints – We demand a full investigation of Wood County BOE corruption and attack on a Father and daughter -Hallie and John Davis concerning vaccine exemption.
Please consider helping this family with all the legal fees they have accrued.
https://www.givesendgo.com/GDR3Y
“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”
Luke 17:2 NIV
Senate health committee advances bill loosening West Virginia’s school immunization laws
MORE WOOD COUNTY BOE MEMBERS CORRUPTION – LONG LIST
https://www.wtap.com/2025/01/23/lawsuit-file-against-wood-county-boe-member
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