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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Civil Air Patrol gets hands-on training ... Central Point couple face elder abuse charges ... Whitewater park with 'wave shaper' to open in Bend ... Civil Air Patrol gets hands-on training ... Central Point couple face elder abuse charges ... Whitewater park with 'wave shaper' to open in Bend ... OUR VIEW Our View: Time to end the vaccine exemption Comment MailTribune.com Writer Posted Feb. 13, 2015 at 12:01 AM Posted Feb. 13, 2015 at 12:01 AM What do you think? --> Have an opinion on this topic? Send a letter to the editor at www.mailtribune.com/sendletter or email ... » Read more X What do you think? Have an opinion on this topic? Send a letter to the editor at www.mailtribune.com/sendletter or email [email protected] . » Social News Oregon in general and Southern Oregon in particular lead the nation in the percentage of school-age children who haven't been vaccinated for serious, life-threatening diseases. Lenient state laws like Oregon's, that allow parents to refuse to immunize their children for "philosophical" reasons, are to blame, and it's time to change that. A Portland state senator and physician says she wants to end Oregon's philosophical exemption in the wake of a measles outbreak that started at Disneyland last month. Oregon has the nation's highest rate of vaccine exemptions at 7.1 percent, but that figure doesn't tell the whole story. In the Josephine County community of Murphy, the Woodland Charter School has 95 students, 66 of whom have vaccine exemptions, a rate of 69 percent. In the Ashland School District, Willow Wind and John Muir charter schools have rates of 62 percent and 58 percent, respectively. In the Medford School District, Madrone Trail Public Charter School's exemption rate is 30 percent, and Ruch School's is 21 percent. These numbers are alarming because the accepted figure for herd immunity, which protects those too young or too sick to be vaccinated, is a vaccination rate of 90 percent to 95 percent, or an exemption rate of no more than 5 percent. The problem is, that's on the average, and it assumes that vaccinations and exemptions are evenly distributed across the population. Obviously, they are not. Schools where a huge majority of students are not vaccinated are disease outbreaks waiting to happen. State Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Portland, introduced SB 442 initially to remove a loophole in a 2013 law that requires parents applying for an exemption to first meet with a pediatrician or watch an informational video. That requirement grandfathered in older students. Steiner Hayward now says she will amend the bill in committee to remove the philosophical exemption option entirely. Religious liberty is not threatened here; virtually no mainstream faith tradition forbids vaccinations on religious grounds, so a religious exemption could be preserved without affecting overall vaccination rates significantly. Safety is not a valid argument either. The risk of dying from the measles is 1 in 1,000. The risk of death from the measles vaccine: 1 in a million. The right of parents to make medical choices for their children ends when that right infringes on the right of other parents to protect their children from disease. Parents may still choose not to vaccinate, but if they do, they shouldn't expect to send their children to public schools.     MailTribune.com Writer Posted Feb. 13, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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