Washington State House passes bill ending the personal exemption for MMR vaccine

A pro­vi­sion in state law that allows par­ents of school­child­ren to opt their kids out of receiv­ing a vac­ci­na­tion for measles, mumps, and rubel­la (the MMR dis­eases) on so-called per­son­al or philo­soph­i­cal grounds may soon be abolished.

Tonight, after a long floor debate, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed Engrossed House Bill 1638, prime spon­sored by Repub­li­can Paul Har­ris. The bill amends RCW 28A.210.080 and 28A.210.090 to allow school­child­ren and kids in day­care to be exempt­ed from the MMR vac­cine for med­ical or reli­gious rea­sons only.

The roll call was as follows:

Roll Call
EHB 1638
Vac­cine pre­ventable diseases
Final Passage
3/5/2019

Yeas: 57; Nays: 40; Excused: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bergquist, Callan, Chap­man, Cody, Davis, Doglio, Dolan, Dye, Enten­man, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Gregerson, Hansen, Har­ris, Hud­gins, Jink­ins, Kil­duff, Klo­ba, Leav­itt, Lekanoff, Lovick, Macri, Mead, Mor­gan, Mor­ris, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Paul, Pel­lic­ciot­ti, Peter­son, Pet­ti­grew, Pol­let, Ramos, Reeves, Ric­cel­li, Robin­son, Ryu, San­tos, Sells, Senn, Shew­make, Slat­ter, Springer, Stan­ford, Stokes­bary, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tar­leton, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Walen, Wylie, Chopp

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Barkis, Blake, Boehnke, Caldier, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Cor­ry, DeBolt, Dent, Dufault, Eslick, Gildon, Goehn­er, Gra­ham, Grif­fey, Hoff, Irwin, Jenkin, Kir­by, Klip­pert, Kraft, Kretz, MacEwen, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Rude, Schmick, Shea, Smith, Steele, Suther­land, Van Wer­ven, Vick, Volz, Walsh, Wilcox, Ybar­ra, Young

Excused: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Appleton

Three Repub­li­cans vot­ed for the leg­is­la­tion: Mary Dye, Paul Har­ris, and Drew Stokes­bary. Two Democ­rats vot­ed against it: Bri­an Blake and Steve Kir­by. One Demo­c­rat did not par­tic­i­pate in the vote (Sher­ry Appleton).

A recent measles out­break in Clark Coun­ty served as the impe­tus for the bill; Clark Coun­ty is Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Har­ris’ home juris­dic­tion. The out­break prompt­ed Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee to declare a state of emer­gency ear­li­er this year.

Accord­ing to PBS, Clark Coun­ty has one of the low­est vac­ci­na­tion rates any­where: sev­en­ty-eight per­cent, which isn’t high enough to pro­vide effec­tive herd immu­ni­ty.

“Since Jan­u­ary 1st [2019], Pub­lic Health has iden­ti­fied sev­en­ty con­firmed cas­es and is cur­rent­ly inves­ti­gat­ing two sus­pect cas­es,” Clark Coun­ty’s offi­cial online sum­ma­ry of the inves­ti­ga­tion states. “Pub­lic Health has iden­ti­fied one new loca­tion where peo­ple may have been exposed to measles.”

“The measles vac­cine isn’t per­fect, but one dose is nine­ty-three per­cent effec­tive at pre­vent­ing ill­ness,” reads an expla­na­tion from Dr. Alan Mel­nick, Clark Coun­ty’s health offi­cer and Pub­lic Health direc­tor. “The rec­om­mend­ed two dos­es of the measles vac­cine pro­vide even greater pro­tec­tion – nine­ty-sev­en percent.”

In approv­ing HB 1638, the Wash­ing­ton State House is fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of the Left Coast’s largest state, Cal­i­for­nia, which has also strug­gled with the issue.

Fol­low­ing a big measles out­break at Dis­ney­land, Cal­i­for­nia law­mak­ers vot­ed in 2015 to abol­ish the per­son­al exemp­tion for vac­cines in the Gold­en State.

“Before the change, only nine­ty per­cent of Cal­i­for­nia chil­dren were vac­ci­nat­ed, which is below the nine­ty-four per­cent thresh­old pub­lic health experts say is need­ed to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty immu­ni­ty to measles. Now, accord­ing to a study released last month, nine­ty-five per­cent of Cal­i­for­nia chil­dren are vac­ci­nat­ed,” Gov­ern­ing Mag­a­zine not­ed in a Decem­ber 2018 report pre­scient­ly titled “ ‘Ripe for an Out­break’: Vac­cine Exemp­tions Are on the Rise” and writ­ten by Mat­tie Quinn.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Har­ris has char­ac­ter­ized EHB 1638 as “a small step” because it only ends the personal/philosophical exemp­tion for the MMR vaccine.

EHB 1638 now heads to the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate for fur­ther consideration.