24/01/2026
VACCINE MANDATE EXEMPTIONS ARE RISING – HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
A new analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) confirms what many parents, physicians, and policymakers have witnessed over the past decade. Vaccine mandate exemptions are steadily rising across the United States, with the sharpest increase occurring after COVID-19 vaccine mandates were implemented.
Researchers analyzing county-level data from 45 states and the District of Columbia reported that religious and conscientious/personal belief exemptions to vaccination increased from 0.6 percent between 2010 and 2011 to 3.1 percent between 2023 and 2024, particularly among children entering kindergarten. There was no change in medical vaccine exemptions, which require a doctor to follow narrow vaccine contraindication guidelines published by the U.S Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) when granting a medical exemption to vaccination for a child.
This trend is not unexpected.
In response to the report, Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), told The Epoch Times:
“The findings were not surprising because officials have narrowed medical exemptions over the years, so parents have only the conscientious and religious exemptions available to protect their children from harm.”
She also noted that the sharper increase in exemptions between 2021 and 2024 reflects the public’s response to COVID-19 vaccine side effects and mandates.
“The COVID-19 vaccine mandates created fear and distrust of aggressive vaccination policies implemented by doctors and public health officials.”
The vaccine exemption analysis, published in a research letter in JAMA, found that more than half of U.S. counties experienced an increase in religious and conscientious/personal belief exemptions greater than one percent between 2010 and 2024. States that eliminated religious and conscientious/personal belief vaccine exemptions saw declines in exemption rates, while medical exemptions remained largely unchanged throughout the study period.
Professors Want Religious, Conscientious Belief Exemptions Eliminated
The authors, who are professors at Columbia and Stanford Universities and Baylor College of Medicine, warned that rising vaccine exemption rates can contribute to increases in disease and called on states to “reconsider” religious and conscientious/personal belief vaccine exemption policies.
For more than four decades, NVIC has emphasized that public trust is built through respect for individual health differences and risk factors, transparency about vaccine safety and effectiveness, as well as respect for informed consent rights. When families feel their legitimate concerns about vaccines are being dismissed by doctors and they are bullied into vaccinating – which certainly happened during the COVID pandemic response - many end up backing away from all vaccines.
AAP Calls for Elimination of the:
Religious, Conscientious Belief Vaccine Exemptions
As noted in the JAMA analysis, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has renewed its call for an end to religious and conscientious/personal belief vaccine exemptions, leaving only the very restrictive medical vaccine exemption in place in state public health laws.
The rising numbers of religious and conscientious/personal belief exemptions underscore the changing attitudes of Americans toward vaccination. As NVIC called for in 2025, there is an urgent need to end vaccine mandates in every state because there can be no exemptions to informed consent.
NVIC remains committed to providing fully referenced information and advocating for the inclusion of informed consent protections in all public health policies and laws so that families can make voluntary vaccination decisions without fear of being punished by doctors or government officials for the decision made.
Please stay informed, review the data, and explore NVIC’s educational resources on vaccine laws and exemptions in your state. You can sign up for the free NVICAdvocacy Portal to take immediate action when vaccine-related bills threaten your informed consent rights are proposed in your state.
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