Ohio’s new policy forcing healthy, unvaccinated children out of school for 21 to 25 days after a confirmed case of measles or rubella is drawing fire from parents, lawyers and scientists.
Critics say the policy isn’t needed to protect public health, it could harm children and it may be illegal.
The policy, part of a public health order signed in February by Ohio Department of Public Health (ODH) Director Bruce Vanderhoff, is enforceable even if the unvaccinated student shows no signs of illness or infection.
The policy also applies whenever a mumps or chickenpox outbreak occurs — and it extends to sports and extracurricular activities, not just classroom attendance.
The 21-to-25-day quarantine resets every time a new case or outbreak is reported at the student’s school.
Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, called the policy “cruel and discriminatory” and a violation of the rights of children and their parents or guardians.
“If the policy is to protect the unvaccinated children, the parents should be the ones to decide,” Tucker said.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the “contrast between medical freedom and medical tyranny is blatant” in the policy, which he said “discriminates against people based on medical choice … with zero evidence that they pose a risk.”
Policy could lead to ‘serious risk of vaccine injury’
Ohio’s school vaccine mandates require students to receive routine childhood vaccinations for 10 diseases: diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, meningococcal, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, rubella, tetanus and varicella (chickenpox).
Earlier this month, Ohio school districts sent letters to parents warning that children who haven’t received two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine will be “excluded from school” for 21 days whenever the school confirms a measles case.
According to the policy, any vaccine doses children received five or more days before the minimum interval or age are “invalid” — so those students are classified as unvaccinated and required to be re-vaccinated.
That could put those children “at serious risk of vaccine injury,” according to Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, which called for the “immediate repeal” of the policy.
In a letter to leaders and members of the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives, the group said Ohio’s policy amounts to a “coercion tactic to bully parents into submitting to vaccination against their conscience out of desperation.”
Most families will be unable to find solutions to keep their unvaccinated children at home for several weeks or months, the letter noted.
Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, agreed that the policy appears deliberately designed to “coerce busy parents into vaccinating their children so they won’t be excluded from attending school and any school-related activities.”
However, Manookian questioned whether the policy will change the minds of parents who have chosen not to vaccinate their kids.
“This policy misses a larger point, which is that many parents would prefer to take the risk of their child contracting measles than to subject their child to the potential risk of the measles vaccines,” she said.
Hellbound and Down 