Attempts to weaken and strengthen vaccination requirments

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From 2011 to 2017, state lawmakers in 18 states proposed 92 bills that could have reduced the number of children receiving vaccines — in most cases by making it easier to obtain exemptions, the study authors reported in the American Journal of Public Health. New Jersey legislators introduced 24 of the bills — the most of any state. (None were in Pennsylvania.

One positive sign: During that seven-year period, lawmakers also introduced 83 bills that would strengthen vaccination rules, mostly by making it harder to obtain exemptions, and those proposals were far more likely to become law. Twelve of those bills were enacted, while just one of the 92 bills that weakened vaccine rules became law. That was a 2011 measure in Washington, allowing any health-care provider or naturopath to exempt children from getting vaccines — a power that previously had been limited to physicians.