Given that our vaccination rates in Colorado are so abysmal, I applaud the effort to not make it so easy for parents to exempt their children. I had a long, amazing, enlightening conversation with a friend last year when similar (but more flawed) legislation was being proposed. That bill needed to be axed and re-done because it didn’t provide for medical exemptions, which are absolutely valid. This bill corrects that flaw.
I can foresee that this could open a dark-market for doctors to rubber-stamp approval in exchange for payments without actually examining pediatric patients (as has happened in CA), but I hope that that can be guarded against.
This bill does not mandate that people have to get vaccinations, it simply requires additional requirements if someone is going to request an exemption so it’s still up to the parents whether to vaccinate or not.
Amid growing concerns about the spread of measles and other preventable illnesses, Colorado lawmakers are bringing back a bill that seeks to make it harder for families to exempt children from vaccines required by public schools.
The Senate bill, unveiled Monday, would require parents seeking an exemption for nonmedical reasons to first speak with an immunizing provider and then have the provider sign an exemption form to submit to the school, or take an online class about vaccinations, print the confirmation and submit it to the school with their exemption form. Currently, parents simply must sign a request and submit it to their children’s school.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
