Religious Exemptions

In order to claim a religious exemption to vaccination, you must hold sincereligious beliefs opposing use of vaccines. There beliefs must be basedon religious, not secular (scientific or medical) grounds. Although youvaccinated your children in the past with tetanus vaccine, if your religious beliefs have changed since that time and are sincerely held,you should be able to freely exercise them under the law.

In thepast few years, New York has demonstrated a lack of tolerance for thoseexercising religious exemption to vaccination. There are pending casesin NY courts right now involving parents who have had religiousexemptions for their children revoked after being harrrassed andinterrogated for hours by school and health officials about the depthand sincerity of their religious beliefs regarding vaccination.

Some parents exercising religious exemption to vaccination for theirchildren obtain a letter from their minister, priest, rabbi or otherspiritual counselor attesting to the sincerity of their religiousbeliefs regarding vaccination. This letter can be filed with the statealong with a statement by the parent declaring that vaccination violatestheir religious beliefs and practices.