Childhood Immunisation Law

I am a nurse with a powerful voice and the legislation of Ohio needs to hear what I have to say. As a community health nurse, with seven years of experience, I am going to meet with elected representatives to discuss the impact of childhood immunizations and exemptions on my practice. I will explain two ways in which I can become politically active, and discuss with current and future legislators the topic of childhood immunizations and exemptions, required for school entry. I will outline the current childhood immunization law(s) of Ohio, and how changes to legislations would impact my nursing practice. It is critical that as a nurse I am involved, and my voice is heard on this issue because it can affect the health of the community I serve.

Currently, the state of Ohio allows for exemptions for the reason of religious beliefs, the reason of conscience, if the child has already had the measles, mumps, or chicken pox, and physician certification of immunization (“LA Writer,”

Changing exemptions at the state level would affect all Ohio residents, and help nurse’s facilitate change at the local and community level. Our legislators need to be made aware, and or reminded of the unnecessary disease outbreaks we have has in this county and in the state of Ohio just recently because of lack of immunizations. In 2014, Ohio suffered a large measles outbreak. There were 374 people infected with the measles in an Amish community. That same year other cases were reported in nine other counties in Ohio, which added up to almost a two-thirds of the country's total measles outbreaks in 2014 (Zeltner, 2015). On June 25, 2015, lawmakers of California voted into legislature a limit on vaccine exemptions for school-aged children because of a measles outbreak in the state during the previous winter that spread to 147 children (Reuters, 2015). This year the United States has had 592 cases of measles, and the majority of these cases are from non-vaccinated people. Being vaccinated accounts for a healthier and longer lives, especially for infants and children (Anderson, 2015). The frightening part about these outbreaks is how quickly these diseases can spread. I firmly believe these outbreaks are proof of the need and effectiveness of vaccines, and the exemption should be only be limited to