- Vaccination and religion
Historical
Catholic and Anglican missionaries vaccinated Northwest Coast Indians during a 1862 smallpox epidemic. []
Exemptions
In the U.S., all but two states allow parents to opt out of their children's otherwise-mandatory vaccinations for religious reasons. The number of religious exemptions rose greatly in the late 1990s and early 2000s; for example, in Massachusetts, the rate of those seeking exemptions rose from 0.24% in 1996 to 0.60% in 2006. Some parents are falsely claiming religious beliefs in order to get exemptions, and some pediatricians are advising parents to lie on their applications. [cite news |url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-17-19819928_x.htm |date=
2007-10-17 |accessdate=2007-11-24 |author= LeBlanc S |title= Parents use religion to avoid vaccines |work= USA Today] TheAmerican Medical Association opposes such exemptions, because they endanger not only the health of the individual child, but also the health of children in the child's group and the community at large. [cite web |url=http://www.ama-assn.org/apps/pf_new/pf_online?f_n=browse&doc=policyfiles/HnE/H-440.970.HTM |title= H-440.970 Religious exemptions from immunizations |publisher=American Medical Association |date=2007 |accessdate=2008-02-01]References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.