Seventy-one years ago this month, Dr. Jonas Salk, a virologist at the University of Pittsburgh, administered the first polio vaccine to children at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh. Dr. Salk had first given shots to himself and his family to raise public confidence about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.
It was a watershed moment. The country had witnessed outbreaks of the feared infectious disease that caused muscular paralysis. In the worst cases, it led to difficulty breathing, forcing patients to live in an iron lung, and in some cases caused death.
The polio vaccine is among the greatest advances in the fight against potentially life-threatening infectious diseases. The development and administration of many more vaccines have improved the health of children and adults dramatically.
A study published in the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health found, "Vaccines are considered one of the most important advances in modern medicine and have greatly improved our quality of life by reducing or eliminating many serious infectious diseases."
But now these vaccines are victims of their own success. State after state are passing laws undermining childhood vaccine requirements. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 30 states and Washington D.C. allow exemptions for people who have religious objections to immunizations. Thirteen states allow exemptions for either religious or personal reasons.
West Virginia is about to join them and it begins Friday when the Senate votes on SB 460.
The bill moving rapidly through in the early days of the West Virginia Legislature would allow immunization exemptions for religious and philosophical reasons. According to the bill, all a parent or guardian would have to do is submit a written statement attesting to their objection. (Brad McElhinny has more here.)
That's the lowest bar possible, and it will put our children at greater risk of contracting a serious disease as herd immunity is compromised. According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, "Infants, pregnant women and immunocompromised people who cannot receive vaccines depend on this type of protection."
This bill will pass and Governor Patrick Morrisey will sign it. He has already issued a legally questionable executive order providing a religious exemption for mandatory school vaccinations. Morrisey has pointed out that West Virginia is an outlier because it currently does not allow liberal exceptions for school immunizations. That is actually a good thing.
As more states opt out, the country is witnessing outbreaks of these once-eliminated dangerous infectious diseases. There is currently a measles outbreak in Gaines County, Texas where one in five kindergarteners in the 2023-2024 school year was not immunized.
During debate on the bill Tuesday, Senators rejected several amendments, including one saying that the opt out would not apply to the polio vaccine. It failed. Nineteen Senators voted against the amendment, choosing to trust their own medical judgement over Dr. Salk's, who has received dozens of awards and honors including the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his life-saving discovery.
We should study history and learn from it. But instead, West Virginia is about to roll back the clock to a time before science made medical advances in vaccines that, according to a study by World Health Organization, have saved 154 million lives over the last 50 years.
(Editor's note: In semi-retirement, one of my new roles is as a media consultant and spokesman for Peak Advantage Medicare, which is affiliated with WVU Medicine and the Marshall Health Network.)