N.Y.'s Narrow School Vaccine Medical Exemption Is Constitutional

A group of parents of school-aged children in New York lost their fight against narrower medical exemptions for school immunizations because the state’s new regulations are rationally related to legitimate state interests, under a Second Circuit ruling.

New York’s health department requires children to be immunized against certain diseases before starting school. In 2019, in response to a state-wide measles outbreak, the state repealed a religious exemption and tightened the rules for medical exemptions.

The new rules require heightened proof to medically exempt children. Rather than simply relying on a doctor’s “say-so” that a vaccine may be detrimental to a ...