Another shot at vaccine law

During his recent trip to London, Gov. Christie provoked what the British call a row by winking at antivaccine know-nothingism even as measles cases surged back in the former colonies. Despite the governor's worst efforts, though, New Jersey has solid vaccination rules and impressive rates of child immunization. For evidence of the depredations of the nonsense the governor so ably articulated in Old Blighty, one has to look to the other side of the Delaware.

In Pennsylvania, the measles vaccination rate among kindergartners last school year was worse than that of every other state save Colorado, according to a review by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 85 percent of the commonwealth's kindergartners had received the required two doses of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, making Pennsylvania one of only eight states below 90 percent. The median coverage was nearly 95 percent, which is also the target threshold for conferring the so-called herd immunity that protects entire populations - including individuals who are too young, infirm, or otherwise unable to be vaccinated.

Pennsylvania was also a laggard in kindergarten vaccination rates for other childhood diseases, such as tetanus and chicken pox. While its rates among toddlers and teenagers have been found to be closer to average, the kindergarten figures are cause for concern, especially amid signs that measles is making a small but concerted comeback.

Like California, home of the infamous Disneyland measles outbreak - and in contrast to New Jersey - Pennsylvania allows parents to claim "philosophical" objections to vaccinations required as a condition of school attendance. At nearly 3,400 in the 2013-14 school year, such exceptions outnumbered those attributed to religious beliefs and were more than double the number granted for medical reasons. While most states allow exemptions for religious in addition to medical reasons, only 20 defer to unspecified personal beliefs.

Fortunately, State Rep. Becky Corbin (R., Chester), a former pharmaceutical chemist who recalls having the measles as a child in the 1950s, is sponsoring legislation to correct this misguided policy and do away with philosophical dispensations. As Corbin told The Inquirer last week, vaccination "saves millions of lives worldwide each year. There can be no philosophical objection to that."

Corbin's bill, which already has bipartisan backing, deserves the support of lawmakers and Gov. Wolf. They should seize the opportunity to offer an antidote not only to a contagion that has reemerged from eradication, but also to the sort of politics that encourages ignorance instead of challenging it.