With a measles outbreak continuing across the country, a discussion is ongoing in New York about how to handle the outbreak.
County leaders were at the Capitol on Monday, pushing legislation to eliminate religious exemptions. Senators Brad Hoylman and David Carlucci have introduced companion senate bills to eliminate the religious exemption in New York state.
Lawmakers say with the largest outbreak in the U.S. since 1994, it's time for New York to get on board.
Rockland County, the epicenter of the spread of the measles across 22 states, has 202 cases as of Monday morning. The CDC’s latest numbers state there are 704 cases of the measles across the country — the most since 1994 — after measles were declared eradicated in 2000.
"This bill is gonna be a godsend," Rockland County Executive Ed Day said.
"Here now, in New York state, we have over 600 cases of measles. The difference between California and New York is that California very quickly moved to eliminate all non-medical exemptions," Hoylman said.
Lawmakers say California already passed the elimination of the religious exemption in 2015, and now it's time for New York to do it.
"We have to move forward with legislation to be an example for other states to follow," Carlucci said.
Assemblyman Ken Zembrowski says his family is affected first-hand, after having to get his 10-month-old baby an early dose of the vaccine and not knowing whether it’s fully effective.
"This is how it can spiral out of control so quickly," Zembrowski said. "Right now, my wife and I, we don’t know whether or not on the weekend [if] we can bring her shopping, [if] we can bring her to the mall ... can we bring her to a park? Because nobody knows what the next report is gonna say."
Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Ruppert was on hand; she says there are still about 1,800 kids in Rockland County schools who have not received one or both doses of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. Ruppert said approximately 331 students in 16 schools are still unvaccinated and should be; they are being kept out of school on the 21-day ban from public places.
Day is even calling on President Donald Trump to take executive action.
"A few months ago, there was no such conversation about a measles outbreak except in pockets of Rockland County and Washington, now we have 22 states affected. Immediacy of action is critical," Day said.
Lawmakers say some have raised concerns about violating constitutional rights, but they've heard from the rabbinical communities that there is no tenet of Judaism prohibiting vaccines.
"So here we have a religious exemption, pretending as if there is some religion out there that has a problem with vaccines," Sen. James Skoufis said.
"You have a First Amendment right to practice your religion, but you do not have the right to endanger your children or worse, other people's children," Hoylman said.
Lawmakers say it's critical this legislation gets passed before summer break, when kids and their families begin traveling even more and the disease could spread further.
http://bit.ly/2PGGAzS
Comments
Post a Comment