The Colorado state senate will consider a bill that allows parents to use a letter rather than a form to opt out of immunizing their children against certain preventable diseases.
Senate Bill 250, “Student Exemption from Immunization Requirements,” is an unnecessary bill that could cause problems for schools and for unimmunized children.
Colorado law requires students in schools and licensed child care operations to receive a series of vaccines spread out throughout childhood. Currently, parents who want to enroll unimmunized children must provide an exemption statement that includes specific information, and schools and other agencies prefer a standardized form on which that information is presented clearly and consistently. Requiring that is hardly onerous, and filling out a form seems faster and easier than writing a letter.
At least one legislator believes that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which designed the most commonly used opt-out form, does not have the authority to create specific forms. If that technical problem were really the issue, SB250 would simply give authority.
The CDPHE medical exemption form is available online in seven languages. The non-medical exemption form, for parents whose objections are personal or religious, is available only in English. At first glance, that may seem like a problem, but the primary reason for collecting the information on a standardized form is to make it available to personnel who need to view it quickly and understand it accurately so that they can determine who is not protected against a communicable disease in the event an outbreak occurs.
Sponsors and supporters say that this legislation is just about the form and has nothing to do with immunization requirements. That is simply not true. Past legislators already have set forth liberal exemptions from immunization requirements; there’s no justification for making opting out even easier for parents who object to the form.
Making essential record-keeping less standardized would put children at risk, including those whose parents have chosen not to immunize them, and all the others who depend on herd immunity to protect them from epidemics.
