Children's Health Defense
More Louisiana parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children before sending them to school this year. The rate of parents opting out of standard vaccines is the highest it’s been in a decade, NOLA.com reported this week.
The number of children starting school with vaccination exemptions has more than doubled in recent years, according to New Orleans CBS affiliate 4WWL.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show the percentage of Louisiana kindergartners who had an exemption from one or more vaccines jumped from 1.1% in the 2022-23 school year to 2.3% in the 2023-24 school year. Figures for the 2024-25 school year are not yet available.
The CDC’s website details the spike:
Overall, vaccine exemptions — particularly for non-medical reasons, such as religious or philosophical concerns — across the U.S. are on the rise, though at a less drastic rate than in Louisana, according to CDC data.
In 2022-23, roughly 3% of all U.S. kindergartners had an exemption from one or more vaccines.
Louisiana passes laws to amplify parents’ right to opt out
Before this year, Louisana law allowed parents to opt out of school immunization requirements as long as they presented their dissent in writing.
However, state lawmakers in 2024 passed two additional measures that amplify parents’ right to opt out of vaccine requirements for school attendance.
Act No. 674 states that students can’t be required to have a COVID-19 vaccine. Act No. 675 requires schools to include exemption information when communicating with families about vaccines. The new laws took effect Aug. 1.
Both new vaccine laws — authored by Rep. Kathy Edmonston and signed by Gov. Jeff Landry — were the result of pushback from previous COVID-19 pandemic mandates and restrictions, Shreveport Times reported…
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