ALBANY — President Donald Trump’s executive order Monday to downsize and spread out the number of vaccinations will have no effect on what’s required for New York’s schoolchildren.
That’s because New York has an ironclad mandate for vaccines for any child enrolled in public, private and parochial schools. The U.S. Supreme Court long ago ruled that states can set their own school vaccination requirements.
New York State still requires the same vaccines to attend daycare, pre-K, or school.
There’s actually only one vaccine on New York’s required list that is no longer on the federal list: the hepatitis B vaccine.
At the federal level, that vaccine is now recommended only for high-risk groups or with parental consent.
But New York says that the hepatitis B vaccine is still required to attend school, pre-K or daycare.
In fact, it’s rare that parents in New York can avoid vaccinating their children. The only school exemptions are for those with very specific health issues, as determined by a doctor. For most families, the only way to avoid New York’s requirements is to choose homeschooling.
Here’s the full list of vaccines required to attend daycare, pre-K or school in New York state:
• Diphtheria and Tetanus toxoid-containing vaccine and Pertussis vaccine (DTaP or Tdap)
• Hepatitis B vaccine
• Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine (MMR)
• Polio vaccine
• Varicella (Chickenpox) vaccine
• Two others are required for daycare or pre-K:
• Haemophilus influenzae type b conjugate vaccine (HiB)
• Pneumococcal Conjugate vaccine (PCV)
Trump’s executive order Monday also called for separating the near-universal measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three separate shots.
But there is no supply of three separate vaccines in the United States, so that won’t happen for a while — if at all.
In the end, Trump’s order doesn’t change anything for the foreseeable future for the vast majority of New York families.
“This Executive Order doesn’t change New York State’s immunization requirements or recommendations,” state health commissioner Dr. James McDonald said in a statement.
The health commissioner went on to criticize Trump for questioning the pace of the MMR vaccine.
“The MMR vaccine has been protecting children for over 55 years,” McDonald said. “Splitting it into three visits offers no clinical advantage and requires children to have more shots and parents to have more office visits while providing no additional medical benefit.”
McDonald also accused the president of confusing the public about vaccinations amid rising measles cases. This year, there have been more than 2,500 confirmed measles cases nationwide, already surpassing last year’s total.
To be clear, Trump’s list still contains measles, mumps and rubella as recommended vaccines for all children.
Yet waiting on the MMR vaccine isn’t uncommon, even if it’s against mainstream medical advice.
In fact, nearly 20% of New York state children don’t get the MMR vaccine on schedule, according to state data. That’s supposed to happen by age 2.
Onondaga County actually has one of the highest on-time MMR vaccination rates in the state, at 85.7%, according to state data.
County health commissioner Dr. Kathryn Anderson agreed that Trump’s order doesn’t override the state’s Public Health Law 2164, requiring school vaccinations.
“Children attending public, private, and religious schools from pre-K through grade 12 must receive the state-required vaccines unless they have a valid medical exemption,” Anderson said in a statement to syracuse.com. “Non-medical exemptions are not permitted. That has not changed, and Onondaga County will continue to follow the state schedule.”
Anderson pointed out that such a mandate has made vaccinations nearly universal.
The MMR vaccination rate among New York schoolchildren is 97.8%, according to federal data. Another 2.2% are not vaccinated, with 0.3% of those having a valid medical exemption.
Eventually, unvaccinated children will be excluded from school under state law until there’s proof of vaccination.
Only home-schooled children, comprising less than 5% of the population, are not required to be vaccinated.
“New York (has) stayed above the 95% threshold needed to stop measles from spreading, one of a shrinking number of states to do so,” Anderson continued. “A policy of ‘medical exemptions only’ is a significant part of why.”
New York’s school vaccination requirements made local headlines recently as a Manlius pediatrician — who caters to vaccine skeptics — was arrested on charges she faked her own kid’s vaccine records to enroll him in school. The state is now suspicious that Dr. Shareen Ismail may have faked vaccine records for nearly 50 other children in her practice, the Alexandre Centre for Children’s Health.
Ismail is currently fighting both a criminal case and the state’s demand that she turn over patient records to investigate vaccine compliance.
New York’s school vaccination mandates have withstood decades of court scrutiny.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled more than a century ago that states have the power to require vaccines, and that vaccines can be required to enroll in school.
After a measles outbreak in the downstate Orthodox Jewish community in 2019, New York rescinded its longtime religious exemption from vaccines.
That puts the state as one of only a handful without a religious exemption. The others are California, Connecticut, Maine and West Virginia. Another state, Mississippi, only recently allowed religious exemptions for the first time after a court order.
Legal challenges to New York’s vaccination requirement have been unsuccessful.
A group of Orthodox Jews sued in 2019 over the end to the religious exemption.
One of their lawyers in that case was Robert F. Kennedy, the current health secretary who has long questioned the benefits of vaccines. An Albany judge tossed the lawsuit, ruling that it was clear the measles outbreak at the time was caused by a lack of vaccinations.
Just last month, a federal appellate court again ruled that the state’s school vaccination mandates are constitutional in a case brought by members of the Amish community.