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3 Additional Vaccine Bills Introduced Into W.Va. Senate This Week
Senator Patricia Rucker introduced three more bills this week that would change West Virginia’s school vaccine policies. The bills create religious exemptions for K-12 students and college students, and expand medical exemptions by shifting authority from the state to treating physicians.
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- SB 608 establishes a religious exemption for school-age children. Parents can exempt their child from required vaccines by presenting a signed certification that they “object to immunization based on sincerely held religious beliefs.”
- SB 609 creates the same religious exemption for college, university, and vocational-technical students. Students 18 and older can sign their own exemption, or parents can sign for younger students.
- SB 610 fundamentally overhauls medical exemptions. Instead of the state commissioner granting medical exemptions, a treating physician or advanced practice provider can issue a written statement that vaccination “is or may be detrimental to the child’s health.” This eliminates the Immunization Officer position.
West Virginia is one of just five states with an absolute vaccine mandate — no exemptions allowed. The state Supreme Court is currently involved in an ongoing legal battle over vaccine requirements after Governor Patrick Morrisey’s executive order conflicted with state law. These bills would codify what Morrisey attempted through executive action. The legislature previously rejected similar exemption proposals in May 2025.
Third Circuit Reinstates Religious Bias Lawsuit Against Geisinger Medical Center Over COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Nasal Swab Testing Containing Potential Carcinogen
A split panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a Title VII religious bias lawsuit against Geisinger Medical Center, allowing over 100 employees to explore whether the hospital network unreasonably required nasal swab testing for those opposed to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The appellate panel ruled 2-1 on Monday to reinstate the employees’ religious bias claim while upholding the dismissal of their equal protection claim. The court said the workers provided sufficient detail to raise concerns about ethylene oxide, a chemical used to sterilize the nasal swabs, which could make the testing accommodation unreasonable.
“It may be that discovery will reveal that any potential exposure to ethylene oxide from twice weekly nasal swabs is not unreasonable under the circumstances, but at the pleading stage, these allegations suffice,” the panel wrote.
Exclusive: US Conditions Funding to Global Vaccine Group on Dropping Mercury-Based Preservative From Shots
The Trump administration has told global vaccine group Gavi to phase out shots containing the preservative thimerosal as a condition of providing the group with funding, a U.S. official and a Gavi spokesperson told Reuters.
The request, which Reuters is the first to report, is the latest sign of efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump to influence health policy globally. Anti-vaccine groups, including one founded by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have for decades claimed that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines, is linked to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, despite many studies showing no related safety issues.
In June last year, Kennedy cut $300 million in annual funding for Gavi, which helps the world’s poorest and lower-income countries buy vaccines to prevent diseases such as measles and diphtheria.
US EPA Moves to Take Action on Review of Fluoride in Drinking Water
U.S. News & World Report reported:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched the first step of its expedited review to determine safe levels of fluoride in drinking water, according to a notice posted in the Federal Register on Wednesday, advancing a priority of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. The agency’s final toxicity assessment will inform potential revisions to fluoride drinking water standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act and will also support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations on fluoride in drinking water, according to the notice.
Removing the natural mineral fluoride from drinking water is a priority of the MAHA movement that backs Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The movement has gained influence in the administration of President Donald Trump, and longtime anti-vaccine activist Kennedy has implemented MAHA priorities such as curbing recommendations for childhood inoculations, drawing rebukes from major medical groups.
Kennedy opposes the addition of fluoride to public drinking water to improve dental health, and has claimed without scientific evidence that water fluoridation at U.S. levels is associated with numerous health issues, including cancer.
Dozens of CDC Databases Aren’t Being Updated — Most Related to Vaccines, Study Finds
Nearly half of the databases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used to update regularly — surveillance systems that tracked public health information like Covid vaccination rates and hospitalizations for respiratory syncytial virus — have been paused without explanation, according to new research. The findings, published Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, indicate that at the start of 2025, the CDC maintained 82 databases that were updated at least monthly. But by the end of October, the study found, 38 had gone stale, with 34 showing no new entries at all in the previous six months.
“These unexplained pauses started predominantly in March and April 2025, shortly after Mr. Trump assumed the presidency and Mr. Kennedy was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services,” the researchers wrote. Although the CDC is perhaps best known for issuing public health advisories and recommendations, the agency also plays a key role as a national record-keeper, tracking the spread of infections and uptake of vaccines in as close to real time as possible.
But the CDC appears to be backing away from that part of its work, the new research suggests. The study found that nearly 90% of the paused databases were related to vaccinations.
The EPA Is Not Starting a New Review of Paraquat
In early January, Reuters and other major media outlets posted headlines declaring that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would “reassess” the safety of paraquat, a controversial weedkiller linked to Parkinson’s disease. Such a reassessment would have been an important development for public health advocates, including members of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, who argue the EPA’s risk-benefit analysis of paraquat is outdated.
While the EPA maintains it can be used safely, the herbicide is banned in more than 70 countries, including China, Brazil, and the United Kingdom—nations with similarly industrialized agricultural systems. “More MAHA Progress!” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin posted on X. “The Trump EPA has made the important, proactive decision to freshly reassess the safety of PARAQUAT. It’s all about gold-standard science and radical transparency for Americans.”
In fact, the EPA did not start a new review of paraquat. Starting with an announcement in November, Zeldin is simply continuing reviews started by the Biden administration in response to lawsuits. “Zeldin is repackaging things that EPA had already committed to do or is legally required to do and is touting it as some new announcement,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a staff attorney at Earthjustice. “In the meantime, the EPA is allowing workers in communities across the country to remain exposed to unsafe levels of paraquat and is failing to take action that is more than justified based on the science.”
Republicans and Democrats Agree EPA’s New Chemical Reviews Are Too Slow
Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives generally agree that a 2016 law is slowing the entry of new chemicals into the US market, including materials needed for artificial intelligence and military applications. But they are at loggerheads on draft legislation that Republicans are promoting—and that the chemical industry is backing—to accelerate the pace of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s review of new substances before they enter commerce.
The EPA conducts those reviews under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which governs industrial chemicals. When Congress updated TSCA in 2016, both industry and environmental advocates initially praised the revised statute.
But within a year, industry began complaining about delays in getting new chemicals into commerce. The 2016 version of TSCA requires the EPA to affirm the safety of each new chemical before the substance enters the market. The requirements of the revised statute have slowed premanufacture review at the agency.
