Bill would prevent unvaccinated children from being excluded from school

LANSING - A new bill that was introduced to the Michigan House of Representatives in late March would prevent public health officials from excluding children from school who have not been vaccinated in the event of a disease outbreak, except in "epidemic" situations.

Proposed by several legislators including local representatives Lee Chatfield, R-Levering and Triston Cole, R-Mancelona, the bill has been referred to the Committee on Education Reform.

"Parents have a fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of their children," Chatfield said in a statement. "While I have personally chosen to vaccinate my children, parents should not be required to participate in a government program in order to exercise their right to make medical decisions for their children."

However, officials with the Health Department of Northwest Michigan believe that both House Bill 4425 would lead to an increase in outbreaks and epidemics of vaccine-preventable disease's such as measles or pertussis, according to Mike Swain, public information officer with the Health Department of Northwest Michigan.

"House Bill 4425 gets rid of our ability to exclude a(n unvaccinated) student from school during an outbreak unless it's an epidemic, and we asked the lawmakers what they consider an epidemic and they didn't have an answer for us," Swain said. "It's concerning to us that we can't legally stop a disease from spreading through a school, and the Michigan association of public health thinks that this is a attack on local public health code in keeping our communities safe."

If the bill were to pass, allowing unvaccinated children to legally attend school during a disease outbreak, other students or faculty may be put at risk, according to Swain.

"Highly-at-risk people that may be pregnant or going through chemo or have an illness, should have the freedom to go to work or school," Swain said. "We're there to protect those people, we don't exclude kids unless we have to, it's not something we take lightly."

The health department has had conversations with both Chatfield and Cole because they co-sponsored the bill, Swain said.

"Through our state association for local public health, we're actively informing legislatures how this would be bad for public health," Swain said. "They asked, for example, why someone who isn't vaccinated puts other people at risk when they wrote the bill, now it's our role to inform folks who write these bills why there are risks. They don't understand why someone who is not vaccinated puts someone at risk, you spread out the disease if it's in a class."