Religious Schools Lead the Vaccine Opt-Out List

All schoolchildren must be immunized against measles in New York, unless they have a religious or medical exemption.

Vaccination compliance is generally quite high — New York City estimates that on average the immunization rate is 97 percent — but there are pockets where large proportions of parents receive exemptions.

Using state data, WNYC found 165 schools in this area, public and private, where more than 10 percent of the students don’t have their shots.

In the city, that percentage triggers a Health Department audit, in which officials go to schools and meet with principals.

"We review what exemptions are on file and talk about immunization requirements, letting principals know that they do have the right to deny that religious exemption," said Dr. Jane Zucker, head of the Immunization Bureau. 

In 2013, 58 Jews in ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn and some of the surrounding suburbs got measles, forming the largest measles cluster in recent years — until the current outbreak, which is occurring primarily on the West Coast.

Zucker said the Health Department at the time and since has made inroads with doctors in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. 

"We have done a lot of work, distributing information about the importance of vaccination, the safety of vaccination, why parents should get their children vaccinated on time," she said, noting some pediatricians have seen their vaccination rates increase after working with the Health Department.

CUNY Sociology Professor Samuel Heilman said in the Ultra-Orthodox world, as in other traditional religious communities, many people associate science with modern, un-godly values. 

"There is a skepticism about everything from global warming to vaccinating children," said Heilman, who has written several books about the ultra-Orthodox. "In many ways they see the scientific view as something that has been foisted upon them by the liberal political left."

One prominent ultra-Orthodox leader, Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky, of Philadelphia, slammed vaccines last summer. 

“It’s a hoax," he told the Baltimore Jewish Times. "Even the Salk [polio] vaccine is a hoax. It’s just big business.” 

Kamenetzky is a member of the Board of Rabbis of the New York-based Agudath Israel, an umbrella group for the ultra-Orthodox. In an emailed statement, spokesman Avi Shafran, said the organization does not take an official position on vaccines. 

"There will always be people on both sides of the issue, including in the Orthodox Jewish (and larger Jewish) community," Shafran said. "It would be wrong, I think, to vilify those who opt to not vaccinate their children, or to postpone vaccinations ... But it would be equally wrong to ignore the clear science regarding the issue." 

Among the 165 schools in the area with high opt-out rates, the largest block is the Ultra-Orthodox, but there is also a sizable number of Protestant, Catholic, Muslim and Greek Orthodox schools.

They are joined in their fear of vaccines by several Waldorf and Montessori schools — generally liberal institutions that in most other ways are at the opposite end of the political spectrum. 

The one case that has turned up in New York so far this year is a Bard College student.