Senate Moves Bill To Allow Religious Exemption To School-Entry Vaccination

A bill to change West Virginia’s law to allow for religious exemptions to school entry vaccination was debated at length in the Senate’s Health Committee Thursday afternoon.

When the 2024 legislature passed legislation to allow some exemptions to school-entry vaccination last year, then-Gov. Jim Justice vetoed the bill after urging from medical professionals across the state.

As West Virginia school-entry vaccination law stands, each child must be vaccinated against chickenpox, Hepatitis B, measles, meningitis, mumps, diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough to attend school.

In lawmakers’ first vaccination discussion of the 2025 legislative session, testimonies and questioning took the committee’s time before they could take action.

In a crowded committee room, doctors and immunologists from WVU Medicine and Marshall Health presented their case against Senate Bill 460, arguing any loosening of the law would allow room for infection and endanger the immunocompromised.

Pediatric Infectious Diseases specialist at West Virginia University (WVU) Children’s Hospital, Matthew Thomas, testified about his time caring for children with vaccine-preventable illness.

“With all the advances in medicine, sometimes we neglect some of the most basic things we’ve ever done that have had the biggest impact on our health and our longevity as a species, sanitation, antibiotics and immunization,” Thomas said. “Nothing else has been so effective that we’ve ever done, in fact, immunization has been so effective that many of us have never seen the diseases that we’re probably going to talk about today.”

Thomas, who also serves as the director of WVU Medicine’s Infection Prevention Program, told lawmakers any change in vaccine requirements could be a crack in the armor of West Virginia’s herd immunity.

“West Virginia has long been a leader in public health policy on immunization and is necessary for children under the age of three years,” Thomas said. “West Virginia has the lowest, among the lowest rates of immunization in the country because of our current policy. We catch up by the time our children enter school. We have among the highest rates of immunization across the nation. As a result, we also have some of the lowest rates of vaccine-preventable illness in the country.”

John Davis and his daughter Hallie testified about the process of seeking a medical exemption in the state, which, according to them, led to years of heartache and litigation with the state’s departments of education and health.

“There’s not freedom,” John Davis told the Senate Health Committee. “We’ve experienced the medical exemption process, and it is very flawed. It’s almost nonexistent. And what I found was truly odd was in the process, the immunization officer and then our appeal to the state health officer never contacted us. How did they know what’s best for us, which is what they put in writing, when they never called any of us?”

Hallie Davis told the committee she had an adverse reaction from a previous experience with a vaccine, and asked her parents to pursue a medical exemption instead of taking the next shot.

“After discussing those concerns with my parents and medical professionals, I made the informed decision to not receive the specific vaccine,” Hallie Davis said. “With that being said, the policy that doesn’t allow for medical exemptions could harm the very individuals it seeks to protect.” Hallie said.

One of newly appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s lawyers, Aaron Siri, virtually testified and presented a PowerPoint.

“I’m not a doctor. I should start by saying, I’m an attorney,” Siri said. “My law firm has about 80 individuals, but we’ve got about 40 folks at my firm who only engage in vaccine-related work. I believe we have the largest vaccine practice in the world that I’m aware of that does not represent pharmaceutical companies.”

Siri argued that West Virginia’s lack of a religious exemption makes it an outlier in the nation.

“If you pass this bill, not one single person in West Virginia will be prevented from getting a vaccine if they want to get it, it’s not what this bill is about,” Siri said. “That’s the way it’s framed, but that’s not what it’s about. Forty-five states, as you’ve heard, have a religious exemption.”

His presentation included a video of the deposition of vaccinologist Dr. Stanley Plotkin discussing the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccine development.

[IN AT 54:13] “In my experience my firm representing thousands of individuals with regards and around this issue, these are often individuals that have some really, sincerely held religious belief and prior medical experience, or some other strong conviction that makes them go against the normal grain in society that compels, that promotes, that bullies them effectively into getting these vaccines, in these taking all these products,” Siri said.

Siri further argued that vaccines are not safe or effective and criticized agencies like the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for their methodology in clinical trials and safety monitoring of vaccines.

“I sued the CDC for all the studies they relied upon to claim that DTaP, given in three months, three times the first year of life, all the vaccines given in the first year of life do not cause autism, and they have no studies,” Siri said.

After more than a half hour, the committee chair, Sen. Laura Chapman asked Siri to stop presenting because the committee was running out of time.

“Mr. Siri, I don’t mean to interrupt, but we’re limited on our time, so could you wrap up? No, you’re fine. Could you wrap it up in like, two, three minutes,” Chapman asked.

Siri answered, “No, I couldn’t, but could I get 20?”

He finished the rest of the presentation and then took questions from lawmakers.

“I apologize about the time I must have gotten misunderstood,” Siri said. “I thought I had an hour or something of time, so I prepared for what I thought I had.”

After hearing from concerned parties on either side of the vaccination issue, lawmakers agreed to recess and reconvene in the evening, where they discussed amendments to the bill.

The original bill, introduced by Gov. Patrick Morrisey via executive order, included reporting requirements for private, public and parochial schools. The committee substitute removed these requirements.

An amendment proposed reinstating these requirements, which would mandate schools to report the number of students exempted from vaccination by December 1 annually.

Concerns were raised about the administrative burden on schools and the feasibility of tracking vaccination rates without the amendment.

The amendment failed, and a committee substitute version of the bill was adopted and reported to the Senate floor with the recommendation that it pass.

Director of West Virginia Families for Immunizations and register nurse, Sissy Price, attended Thursday’s committee meeting to hear each side of the vaccination debate. Instead, Price said she felt no one’s time was respected.

“He (Siri) was allotted, and he was an attorney, not a medical professional, not a physician, presenting a PowerPoint 35 minutes long, where the opposing side for vaccines were only allotted 10 minutes, but Chairwoman Chapman did not even stop or ask the presenter, or warn him of the time constraints,” Price said. “So it just was a little disheartening when you expect elected officials to uphold their committee to certain regulations and rules and governing.”

Price is also a military veteran and said she fought for the freedoms being discussed and legislated.

“When I go to the legislature, I expect my elected officials to uphold committees to standards and I really was very disappointed that we are not representing what America is made of, you know, freedoms and equal voices,” Price said. “It very much felt like the cards have already been dealt. The game has already been played.”