Dear Members of the Public Health Committee
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Dear Members of the Public Health Committee, Typically during testimony, I would explain how this bill impacts my family specifically, but today I want to talk about the numbers. The whole impetus of this bill which aims to remove the religious exemption right now is not because of an emergency or public health crisis, but because of the possibility of one in the future. The Department of Public Health released vaccination data that shows an increase in the use of the religious exemption from one year to the next and “dangerous pockets” of low vaccination rates. I’ve poured over the numbers like children’s lives depend on it, because, frankly it does. The data I’ve used is from the Department of Public Health immunization surveys and the Department of Education’s student enrollment numbers for the 2018-2019 school year. But unfortunately there are many flaws in the data: • Using the supplied data and getting less than one child with an RE or percentages of a child. • Enrollment was less than 30 students and data was still supplied. • Schools with only Pre-Kindergarten students are used in the averages. I’m going to focus on the public school numbers since they are available from the State of CT EdSight database. For public schools, the increase from last school year to the previous year is an average of one religious exemption per public school. ONE. In the 2018-2019 school year there were 530,612 students in public K-12. With an overall exemption rate of 1.8%, that accounts for 9,551 RE. In 2017-2018 year, there were 535,025 students with an exemption rate of 1.5%, which totals 8025 RE. The increase from one year to the next was 1526 RE. There are 1511 public schools in CT. That amounts to an increase in one RE in every public school. ONE. “Dangerous Pockets” are a measuring artifact and created by classifying any child who has less than all required vaccines as exempt while ignoring the disproportionate percentage representation of a single child in small schools. On average, larger schools have low exemption rates, while smaller schools have higher exemption rates because one student with an RE makes a much greater impact in a small school. Let’s compare two schools that have 1 RE each: 1) The private school, All Nations Christian Academy in New Haven, has 24 students. Technically their data shouldn’t have been released because it is fewer than 30 students. Even raising that number to 30 students for the sake of the argument, one student with an RE accounts for an exemption rate of 3.3% 2) The public school, Crosby High School in Waterbury, has 1162 students. One student with an RE accounts for an exemption rate of .1% One student has a 97% greater impact in this small school versus this larger. What about in a school like Danbury High School which has the highest enrollment at 3086 versus a school like Fusion Academy which only has 6 kids? One student would have 55,466% greater impact on the RE rate in the smallest school versus the largest, but it is still only ONE child. Percent 2018/19 Total Average Number of Percent of State Impact of School RE Enrollment of Enrollment Schools in Total Enrollment & Single Percentage All Schools in per School in Category Cumulative % Exemption in Rates Category Category Category 0.0-4.99% 1,211 549,112 453 96.88% 96.88% 0.22% 5.0-9.99% 67 14,300 213 2.52% 99.40% 0.47% 10.0-19.99% 19 2,967 156 0.52% 99.92% 0.64% 20.0-39.99% 5 373 75 0.07% 99.99% 1.34% 40% plus 1 63 63 0.01% 100.00% 1.59% 622% greater impact on TOTALS 1,303 566,815 small schools than larger ones I also analyzed the non-public school data as provided by the DPH, but there is no publicly state available database to get the private school enrollment data. Higher exemption rates are coming from non-public schools that fit mostly into 3 categories: Religious schools and schools with lower enrollment rates like Montessori/Waldorf or specialized schools. It makes sense that religious schools would have some of the highest RELIGIOUS exemption rates. Let’s talk about 95%. When discussing the impact of the RE on schools, we should be calculating it as 100% minus the RE rate. Vaccination rates lower than that cannot be attributed to the RE. 96.88% of CT school children attend a school with less than 5% religious exemptions. Where is the drive to find where the gap is coming from? In CT, to enroll in Kindergarten, the child must turn 5 by December 31st of that school year - the LATEST cutoff date in the country. What this means, is that some students are 4 years old starting Kindergarten. In CT, we also mandate the flu shot, Hib and pneumococcal vaccines for students under 5. So those children would be expected to have those vaccines at enrollment, but not a few months into the school year after their birthday. In addition to this, the CDC recommends the second dose of MMR between 4 and 6 years old. Most students start school within that timeframe. These children could be considered non-compliant as far as vaccination rates, but actually be within the recommended CDC timeframe to get the vaccine. Please do not remove the religious exemption based on statistics that were manipulated to seem as damaging as possible. The 25% increase you hear about on the news is an increase of only .5% for Kindergarten religious exemption rates. Seventh grade only increased by .1% and the overall rate for all grades increased by .3% or an average of ONE student per school. This bill: • Aims to remove the religious exemption completely for all public and private K-12 schools, child care, institutions of higher education and child group care homes. • Gives children/students who previously used the religious exemption until the start of the 2020 school year, or Sept 1, 2020 for child care, to get the initial dose of any missed, age-appropriate vaccines and to create a catch- up schedule for any additional required doses. • Requires children/students who are medically exempt from one or more of the vaccines on CT’s vaccination schedule to submit a new certificate, to be created by the Department of Public Health • Establishes an advisory committee with access to CT WiZ - the CT state vaccination database, the authority to review whether children/students using the medical exemption should be required to meet other criteria and if the DPH should have any oversight on the usage of exemptions. • Requires any adult, born after 1956, enrolling in higher education classes held on the campus of colleges, universities, academies, tech and vocational schools and seminaries, to have proof of receiving two doses of MMR, two doses of chickenpox and two doses of the meningitis vaccine (for students living on campus) unless they have a certificate from their medical provider that they have had a confirmed case of measles, mumps, rubella or chickenpox or their medical provider uses the new DPH certificate to state that it would not be advised to get those vaccines because of the student's health. …all because of data that is filled with inaccuracies and doesn’t prove that those with a religious exemption are even a risk. Thank you, Jessica, Groton My research for the All Grades data will follow. The columns in grey were supplied by the Department of Public Health 2018-2019 School by School Immunization Survey. The blue columns are data from www.edsight.ct.gov and the private school data was looked up individually for each private school. The data was unavailable for the schools with * instead of numbers. Name OfficialTown Type Ex_Med Ex_Rel Ex_Tot # Students ME RE Total Andover Elementary School Andover Public 1.6% 3.1% 4.7% 191 3 6 9 Assumption-Ansonia Ansonia Nonpublic 0.5% 3.6% 4.1% 200 1 7 8 Ansonia Middle School Ansonia Public 0.0% 1.2% 1.2% 335 0 4 4 Ansonia High School Ansonia Public 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 565 0 0 0 Emmett O'Brien Technical High School Ansonia Public 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 607 0 0 0 Mead School Ansonia Public 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 634 1 1 2 Prendergast School Ansonia Public 0.0% 0.6% 0.6% 644 0 4 4 Ashford School Ashford Public 0.5% 2.7% 3.2% 409 2 11 13 The Webb School in the Valley Avon Nonpublic * * * * * * * Talcott Mt. Academy of Science Math & Technology Avon Nonpublic 0.0% 7.5% 7.5% 69 0 5 5 Farmington Valley Academy Montessori Avon Nonpublic 1.2% 4.8% 6.0% 117 1 6 7 Avon Old Farms School Avon Nonpublic 0.0% 0.3% 0.3% 410 0 1 1 Ana Grace Academy of the Arts Elementary School Avon Public 0.0% 4.2% 4.2% 478 0 20 20 Avon Middle School Avon Public 0.6% 1.4% 2.0% 511 3 7 10 Thompson Brook School Avon Public 0.4% 2.2% 2.5% 509 2 11 13 Reggio Magnet School of the Arts Avon Public 0.2% 2.5% 2.7% 521 1 13 14 Roaring Brook School Avon Public 0.0% 2.8% 2.8% 483 0 14 14 Pine Grove School Avon Public 0.0% 1.1% 1.1% 626 0 7 7 Avon High School Avon Public 0.2% 0.6% 0.8% 951 2 6 8 Barkhamsted Elementary School Barkhamsted Public 0.0% 1.8% 1.8% 204 0 4 4 Laurel Ledge School Beacon Falls Public 2.0% 0.0% 2.0% 296 6 0 6 Mooreland Hill School Berlin Nonpublic * * * 42 * * * Richard D.