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West Virginia House Rejects Vaccine Exemption Bill, a Priority for Morrisey
The House of Delegates on Monday rejected a bill that would have loosened the state’s strict school vaccination laws. Delegates voted 42 to 56 against Senate Bill 460. The legislation would have implemented a religious exemption for the state’s vaccine laws, allowing families who object to the shots on religious grounds to submit a written statement to their school administrator in order to be exempt from the requirements.
The state’s private and parochial schools would have been able to set their own requirements for vaccines. Under current law, children must have a medical reason for being exempt from vaccine requirements. The bill also would have revamped the state’s medical exemption process.
Current law requires the medical provider of a family seeking a medical exemption to provide documentation of the medical need for the exemption to the state immunization officer for approval.
The bill would have allowed families to obtain a written statement for an exemption for a vaccination requirement from their licensed physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner, if that health care provider determines it is or may be detrimental to the child’s health or not appropriate.
RFK Jr.’s Cellphone Ban in Schools Sparks Strong Response
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to ban cell phones in schools because they “produce electromagnetic radiation” has sparked backlash online, reports Newsweek. Kennedy Jr. is pushing the “right policy (get cellphones out of kids’ hands during the school day)” but has a “wacky reasoning” for it, Ashish K. Jha, a physicist who serves as dean of Brown University School of Public Health, said in a post on X.
“There’s so much actual evidence to support banning phones in schools but RFK chooses the one that’s from a guy on TikTok with sunglasses and 12 followers who ‘did their own research,’” said Carl Hendrick, a professor of education at Academica University of Applied Sciences.
Kennedy Jr. on Thursday told Fox News cell phones “emit electromagnetic radiation, which has been proven to cause neurological damage to children when they are exposed to it all day.”
Wall Street Is Profiting From America’s Autism Crisis
Mary H. is a mother of three boys living with her family in Georgia. Her middle son, Jack, was diagnosed with autism at age three. Despite getting Jack into an early intervention program, the wait list for behavior therapy — as for most families in Georgia and across the country — stretched to more than a year. With his behavior impeding his speech and occupational therapy, the family had run out of options.
Unfortunately, Mary’s story is all too familiar for the millions of Americans living with autism today. For many, even if they can get through a months-long waitlist, the nearest therapy center might be miles or hours away and then only open between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. — an impossibility for working families. They are all too familiar with the repercussions of our country’s losing battle with autism.
With one in every 36 children being diagnosed with autism, it is the fastest growing developmental disability in the U.S. While there is much discussion about the cause of this unwelcome explosion, the often ignored takeaway is that it has caught the healthcare industry flat footed and families and children are stuck looking for support.
Deep Brain Stimulation Shows Promise for Reducing Self-Injurious Behavior in Children With Autism
Severe self-injurious behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) poses a significant risk of permanent physical injury. Not all children respond to behavioral therapies.
Findings from a pilot trial in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier, show that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the nucleus accumbens, the reward-related region of the brain, in children with severe self-injurious behavior and ASD is relatively safe and feasible and may have notable benefits.
John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, says, “Repetitive self-injurious behavior is a terribly dangerous and potentially life-threatening condition for which there are limited treatment options. This report describes a novel neurosurgical approach to treatment involving DBS of a brain reward center. While the findings are extremely preliminary, they suggest that stimulation of this reward-related region of the brain may reduce self-injurious behavior, justifying further study.”
Alabama Private Schools May Soon Have to Allow Religious Exemptions From Vaccination
An Alabama lawmaker has filed a bill, HB444, requiring “religiously affiliated” private schools to accept religious exemptions for vaccine requirements. Sponsored by Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, the legislation states that both religiously affiliated private schools and school churches would be subject to implementing a religious exemption process.
Butler told AL.com that the bill was inspired by concerns raised to him by parents who sent their children to such schools and sought religious exemptions against the COVID-19 vaccine but were denied. Butler’s legislation also provides that if a school fails to adopt a religious exemption exception then the institution will be penalized in several outlined methods.
“Any private school or church school that fails to accept religious exemptions to vaccine or testing requirements shall be subject to corporate income tax and ad valorem tax, may not claim certain tax exemptions, and is ineligible to receive CHOOSE Act funding”, the bill reads.
‘Moroccan Measles Variant’ Found in Brussels
A variant of the measles virus prevalent in Morocco has been found in sewage water in Brussels, research conducted by KU Leuven reveals. Elke Wollants, lab manager at Leuven University’s Rega Institute has identified the variant of the virus found as genotype B3, the so called ‘Moroccan variant’.
Wollants speaks of a particularly high concentration of the measles virus, peaking on 11 March. Enquiries by the researcher at Brussels health institute Vivalis reveal that only 18 cases have been reported so far this year. ‘That’s probably an underestimate,’ she says, though she also points out that this type of measles has a large viral load, which may influence the results.
Morocco is currently facing an ‘historically large’ measles outbreak. Since the end of 2023, more than 25,000 cases have been recorded in the North African country, resulting in about 120 deaths. The genotype B3, also found in Brussels ‘is on the rise all over Europe. This is alarming.
The Netherlands already counted 45 cases in two weeks, and Spain and France are also in trouble,’ Wollants warns. According to a recent report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Belgium, with 551 cases, ranks 4th in Europe for the highest number of infections between Feb. 1, 2024 and Jan. 31, 2025.
