Not a Joke: CT Republicans Work to Undermine Child Vaccine Coverage

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Connecticut’s removal of non-medical exemptions to school vaccine requirements has helped the state avoid preventable outbreaks experienced by other states, but that hasn’t stopped Connecticut Republicans from proposing to repeal the policy. 

The Republican bills, House Bill 5198 and House Bill 5629, would allow parents to claim moral or other objections to standard immunization requirements, essentially repealing a 2021 law intended to protect school children from preventable illnesses like measles, mumps and rubella.

The law that Republicans are seeking to reverse appears to have had a positive impact. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found vaccine coverage increasing among Connecticut kindergarteners even as they declined nationally over the same period. 

And in some states that decline has already had consequences. Oregon, for instance, has experienced an increasing number of parents exempting their kindergarteners from immunization since 2000, according to NBC16, and last year Oregon experienced a historic outbreak of measles — a disease once considered eradicated in the United States as a result of vaccines. 

The anti-vaccine proposals from Connecticut Republicans coincide with GOP efforts to undermine immunization policies throughout the nation. 

Some of those proposals have come from the White House, where President Donald Trump has nominated vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has alerted states that the agency intends to link federal funding to a number of seemingly unrelated issues, including prohibiting recipients of DOT support from imposing vaccine mandates. 

Connecticut Republicans have not limited their anti-vaccine efforts to simply repealing the 2021 law. GOP lawmakers have proposed a variety of bills on the issue, including legislation to “prevent animals from being overvaccinated.” 

Learn about more CT GOP proposals, including:

 

Or learn about legislation by Senate Democrats to reduce the costs of prescription drugs, essential goods, and energy rates.

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