By Brandon T. Bisceglia
A first-ever release by the Connecticut Department of Public Health of school-by-school vaccination rates shows that several schools in Milford and Orange have exemption rates above the level recommended to prevent the spread of preventable diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a 95 percent immunization rate for measles, mumps and rubella vaccines in kindergartners.
Most of the schools that fell below the CDC’s threshold were private or religious schools. However, in Milford, Calf Pen Meadow School had a vaccination rate of 93.8 percent and Orange Avenue School had a vaccination rate of 94.2 percent. In Orange, Turkey Hill School had a vaccination rate of only 90.1 percent and Mary L. Tracy School had a vaccination rate of 92.4 percent.
Some of the private and religious schools had extremely low vaccination rates. Milford Christian Academy’s vaccination rate was the lowest, at only 76.7 percent. Southern Connecticut Hebrew Academy had the lowest rate in Orange, at 88.6 percent.
Overall, Connecticut has higher immunization rates than most other states. According to the DPH, the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rate across the state was 96.5 percent for kindergartners and 98.4 percent for seventh graders.
The school-by-school information shows, though, that pockets exist in some areas, including in Milford and Orange, that are far below that range. Across the state, 108 schools were found to have rates below the threshold.
The state released the data in the midst of a growing measles crisis that has resulted in over 700 cases so far nationwide this year – the most since 1994, and far above the number seen since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000.
Most of those cases have come out of two Jewish enclaves in New York. There is no prohibition against vaccination in Judaism. Rather, these insular communities have been prey to long-disproven claims that vaccines cause health problems like autism.
Highly communicable diseases like measles require high rates of vaccination in order to confer what medical professionals call “herd immunity,” lowering the chances that an individual case will find a foothold and be able to spread more widely in the community.
Immunized children and adults are generally not at risk of infection. A small number of individuals are unable to be vaccinated for various medical reasons. They depend on herd immunity to avoid contact with diseases like measles.
But the state data show that many of the exemptions have been for religious reasons.
At Milford Christian Academy, 6.7 percent of exemptions were claimed for religious reasons. At Mary L. Tracy School, 6.5 percent of the students had religious exemptions – the vast majority of all exemptions.
Under current Connecticut law, a parent can claim a religious exemption simply by notifying the school nurse. Nurses have the right not to acknowledge the exemption, but in practice that is rarely done.
A bill currently wending through the state legislature would bolster nurses’ rights to refuse exemption claims.
Anti-vaccine proponents have been vocal against the measure. Democratic state Rep. Liz Linehan of Cheshire recently received anonymous threats against her and her family via social media over her support for the measure.
Lawmakers have discussed removing the religious exemption altogether, but there is no legislation this session that would address it. Though some states have weaker vaccine exemption laws than Connecticut, only three states do not allow religious exemptions at all: California, Mississippi and West Virginia.
Milford School-by-School Vaccine Exemption Rates
Orange School-by-School Vaccine Exemption Rates
Editor’s Note: Although an earlier version of this story reported the correct overall vaccine exemption rates, the medical and religious exemption columns in the charts were reversed.