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August 2014] EXEMPTIONS FROM IMMUNIZATION 1553
seeking an exemption from school immunization requirements as
“philosophical” or based on “personal beliefs.” 2 The main reasons for
their objection to vaccines were safety concerns—such as concerns that
vaccines “might cause harm,” “contain dangerous/toxic ingredients,” or
“may overwhelm the immune system”—together with a general belief
that natural immunity is in some way “better.” 3
The problem is that New Mexico does not have a philosophical
exemption; it only has religious and medical exemptions. 4 Thus, the
people responding to the survey, all of whom had successfully obtained
exemptions in New Mexico, had to have claimed one or the other of the
two allowable grounds, even though their reason for not vaccinating was
neither medical nor religious.
With over 1.2 billion users 5 and several dedicated anti-vaccine
pages, Facebook provides a place for anti-vaccine activists—a very, very
small minority—to create a community of like-minded people who can
converse and express their views. Facebook also provides a forum for
individuals to offer advice about obtaining vaccination exemptions. In
response to a request for advice on how to exempt someone from school
immunization requirements, one online commentator said, “She is going
to have to lie. If you give any vaccine even 1 shot [sic] they say it can’t be
religious beliefs. I had to do a bit of Photoshop work to make the records
say they have NEVER had any shots.” 6
This Article argues that, like this commentator and the New Mexico
exemptors, many of those who claim a religious exemption lie—their real
reasons for not wanting to vaccinate their children are not religious.
Since the religious exemption, in its current format, is so easily and
commonly abused, this is inappropriate.
People lie to the government in many contexts, of course. But when
a statutory exemption is easily and widely abused in ways that undermine
the goals of the statute and may lead to substantial harm, it is probably
time to consider changing the law. All the more so when the states have
substantial leeway to choose their own course.
2. Department of Health Announces Results of Vaccine Exemption Survey, N.M. Dep’t of Health
(Nov. 18, 2013), http://archive.nmhealth.org/CommunicationsOffice/2013%20News%20Releases/NMDOH-
PressRelease-20131118-VaccineExemptionSurvey-EN.pdf.
3. Id.
4. Id.; see N.M. Stat. Ann. § 24-5-3 (West 2014).
5. Jemima Kiss, Facebook’s 10th Birthday: From College Dorm to 1.23 Billion Users, The
Guardian (Feb. 3, 2014), http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/04/facebook-10-yearsmark-zuckerberg.
6. See infra Appendix A, Figure 1 (capitalized in original). All of the comments located in
Appendix A come from public pages on Facebook. Pursuant to an Institutional Review Board
(“IRB”) exemption, these comments have been included with the names and pictures of the posters
hidden and without citations to the original Website to protect the poster’s anonymity.