By Rick Green
THE KEENE SENTINEL
The N.H. Department of Health and Human Services has triggered some complaints by placing a new form on its website for people seeking a religious exemption from school vaccination requirements.
Some members of the N.H. Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules demanded in a meeting Thursday that the form be removed from the department’s website immediately. They objected to its warnings about risks of going unvaccinated and to requests for what they say is private medical information.
House Bill 1035, which Gov. Chris Sununu signed May 20, removes a requirement that parents get their signature notarized when they request their child be exempted from the vaccination requirement for diseases such as polio, measles and diphtheria. COVID-19 vaccinations are not among the injections public- and private-school students must receive.
Health and Human Services spokesman Jake Leon said the new form can be used by parents, but he also said it is an interim document and not formalized yet through an administrative process.
The new form was needed in order to remove wording about notarization, but it also lists the required vaccinations and asks parents to put a check mark next to those for which an exemption is being sought.
“It is common on other state exemption forms to inquire which vaccines are being exempted in order to determine which children in a school or child care population are not vaccinated against certain preventable communicable diseases if there is an outbreak,” Leon said in an email.
Vaccinations listed on the form are polio, diphtheria-tetanus-whooping cough, hepatitis b, the hib vaccine (for a certain type of influenza), measles-mumps-rubella and varicella (chicken pox).
Rep. Tim Lang, R-Sanbornton, prime sponsor of HB 1035, said Friday that by asking about individual vaccinations a child won’t be receiving, the form inappropriately seeks private medical information that the state is not entitled to have without legislative authorization.
He said parents also complained to him about warnings they are supposed to initial acknowledging risks of contracting vaccine-preventable disease, spreading such diseases to others and being barred from school attendance in the event of certain disease outbreaks.
Lang said the old form merely asked for a religious exemption for vaccine mandates and included the notary requirement, but did not have additional wording.
He said that as a procedural matter, the form should not have been posted on the website before it was finalized through required approval by the Committee on Administrative Rules after a public hearing.
“They never followed the process,” he said. “They just put the form up there.”
He said he would like to know why the department felt it necessary to include the warnings and the request for information about specific vaccine exemptions.
“I want to know why the DHHS feels there is a public health reason for that,” he said. “I’m real protective of my citizens’ data.”
His Facebook post about the form drew 52 comments, many of which were critical of the document.
Rep. Tim Horrigan, D-Durham, offered a solution to parents who don’t want to fill out the form.
“There is another alternative, and I know I am speaking to a crowd with more than its share of anti-vaxxers,” he wrote in the comments field. “You can get your kids vaccinated. It’s free. It’s easy. It’s effective.”
Lang said parents can make their own form and give it to their child’s school to get a vaccination exemption, and Leon acknowledged that people don’t need to use the exact form on the website.
A 2021-22 annual school immunization report from the N.H. Department of Health and Human Services indicates that 93 percent of the state’s 178,440 public- and private-school students in grades kindergarten through 12 were up to date on their vaccinations.
Another 2 percent had religious exemptions, 0.3 percent had medical exemptions, 2 percent were not up to date on vaccinations and 2 percent were conditionally enrolled with at least one dose of every required vaccine.
A report from Vanderbilt University lists dozens of religious denominations with no objection to vaccinations. The only denominations listed in opposition were some faith-healing groups and Dutch Reformed congregations.
The original version of HB 1035 would have allowed any parent to get an exclusion for the school-vaccine requirement for their child “as a matter of conscience.” This provision was removed after strong opposition from health advocates.
Leon said health officials feel not enough children are being vaccinated.
“Not only in New Hampshire but throughout the country, there has been a sustained decline in childhood vaccinations,” he said via email.
“Public Health officials are very concerned to see more children losing out on protection from preventable diseases. Decreased vaccination rates put individuals and communities at greater risk for the spread of disease which may result in increased hospitalizations, increased healthcare costs, missed days of work/school, lead to chronic conditions or in rare cases, death.”
However, he said his department does not expect that the elimination of the notary requirement for religious exemptions will have a significant impact on statewide childhood vaccination rates.
“Getting children and adolescents caught up with recommended vaccinations is the best way to protect them from a variety of potentially life-threatening, vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccinated children miss fewer days of school when compared to their unvaccinated peers,” he said.
Proof of vaccination is required when a child is first enrolled in school or enters child care.
Rick Green can be reached at [email protected] or 603-355-8567.
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.