For Immediate Release: October 29, 2020
Contact: Paul Fidalgo, Communications Director
[email protected] - (207) 358-9785
Children have the right to protection from preventable infectious diseases, even if their parents are unwilling to provide that protection in the form of officially recommended vaccinations. That’s why the Center for Inquiry is urging D.C. lawmakers to pass the Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2019, a bill that will allow minors of eleven years and older to be vaccinated without their parents’ approval.
In a letter to the D.C. City Council and Mayor Muriel Bowser, the Center for Inquiry points out the elevated risk to unvaccinated children from the measles virus, which kills thousands of children globally each year, and remains a leading cause of death in young children. Without vaccination rates of 95 percent or higher, measles outbreaks become a genuine threat to public health. Some D.C. elementary schools’ vaccination rates are as low as 59.7 percent.
“Anti-vaccination propaganda based on pseudoscience and baseless conspiracy theories has convinced far too many parents to deny their children the life-saving protection of vaccines,” said Jason Lemieux, Director of Government Affairs for the Center for Inquiry. “This not only risks their children’s health and safety by leaving them vulnerable to infection, but also keeps kids from being able to attend public schools or be admitted to day care centers. Children who are able to meet the standard of informed consent in consultation with a health care provider should be allowed to protect themselves from deadly diseases.”
“The novel coronavirus pandemic illustrates with brutal clarity the potential public health impact of permitting minors to give informed consent to safe, effective vaccinations,” writes CFI, pointing out that the COVID-19 infection rate among 12 to 17-year-olds has been twice as high as that of children between 5 and 11.
The spread of conspiracy theories and junk science has sown mistrust in vaccines—which are among the safest and most effective medical interventions ever devised, and many parents who get caught in what CFI calls a “fire hose of misinformation” choose not to vaccinate their children as a result. “When parents are unable or unwilling to provide vaccines to their dependent children,” they write, “it is incumbent upon society to protect those children from contagious diseases that could rob them of their health and safety.”
Jason Lemieux testified before the D.C. Council in support of the Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act when it was first debated in 2019, video of which can be seen here.