JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi lawmakers will not vote this year on creating a religious exemption to Mississippi’s vaccination requirements, a committee chairman says.
House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Andy Gipson made the announcement about House Bill 1505 on Monday, after supporters of the exemption spent the weekend calling and leaving messages for lawmakers. Tuesday is the first major deadline of the three-month legislative session.
Gipson, a Republican from Braxton, said House Speaker Philip Gunn will appoint a study committee. Gipson said he believes the group will propose legislation that could be considered in 2019, but it is possible the Health Department could resolve critics’ concerns by setting new rules about vaccination exemptions.
The delay pushes a contentious issue into a state election year, when all state House and Senate seats will be on the ballot and most current lawmakers are expected to be running again.
The state health officer, Dr. Mary Currier, told the Judiciary B Committee on Wednesday that viruses used in some vaccines are grown on tissue that originated from abortions in the 1960s.
“Nobody likes that. I don’t like that,” Currier said. “I sincerely hope that the companies that make these vaccines are working on that issue, to provide vaccines that are not from these tissues.”
Currier opposes weakening Mississippi’s vaccine law, saying, for example, that measles “is not a benign disease.” In the U.S., about 1 in every 20 children who contracts measles will develop pneumonia, she said.
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