Seventy-four percent of elementary school personnel surveyed in California did not believe their schools had the authority to deny medical exemptions, and over half opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates for students, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
According to the study, published in the journal Vaccine, “almost half” of the respondents “supported COVID-19 vaccine mandates for children in elementary (43%), middle (44%), and high (49%) schools” — indicating that a majority of respondents opposed the mandates.
Respondents also expressed concerns about the safety of vaccines for children, with 42% “concerned that children’s immune systems could be weakened by too many shots.”
Thirty-two percent thought immunizations do “more harm than good” and 28% said they did not believe vaccines strengthened the immune system.
Over one-third of respondents (37%) said they opposed vaccine requirements “because ‘they go against freedom of choice and because parents know what is best for their children.’”
Forty-one percent thought parents should be allowed to send their children to school even if unvaccinated.
Most respondents said parents would oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates for students, with 72% stating it “would be hard to implement or enforce a COVID-19 mandate for elementary school children” and 65% expecting “a lot of pushback.”
The study was based on a 2022 survey of 122 California elementary school personnel, including principals, registrars, health clerks and nurses. At the time, a statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students and accompanying legislation were under consideration. However, the mandate never took effect.
Matthew Z. Dudley, Ph.D., associate research professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an affiliate of the Institute for Vaccine Safety, was the lead author of the study.
The study cited California Senate Bill No. 277 (SB-277), legislation passed in 2015 that eliminated non-medical exemptions to school vaccine requirements.
According to the study, “Instead of a centralized review mechanism, SB277 gave schools the authority to accept or deny the medical exemption requests of their student population, leading to varied interpretation of SB277’s regulatory language across jurisdictions and school districts.”
Writing on Substack, blogger Jon Fleetwood said the study “obliterates the myth of a pro-vaccine consensus.” Rev. Wendy Silvers, founder of the Million Mamas Movement, said parents do not want to see their children penalized over their vaccination status.
“In 25 years of working with parents, parents want to know what the risks of shots or any medicine they’re giving to their children are, what the ingredients are and to have their parental rights to make a choice for their children,” Silvers said.
A Zogby poll commissioned by Children’s Health Defense in November 2024 found an overwhelming 72% of respondents said no to government-mandated experimental vaccines — like the COVID-19 vaccines.
According to a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center in January, public support for religious exemptions has nearly doubled in the last six years. A July 2024 Gallup poll found that support for mandatory school vaccination has declined in recent years.
Last month, Republican West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued an executive order allowing religious exemptions, influenced in part by grassroots efforts by parents in the state.
Study intended to ‘tighten the vaccine mandate process in schools’?
For Fleetwood, the study’s results are “a stunning rebuke to the relentless vaccine propaganda championed by globalist figures like Bill Gates” and “reflects a broader public distrust of the jab mandates Gates and his ilk have tirelessly promoted.”
One of the study’s co-authors, Saad Omer, Ph.D., received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is on the boards of the Gates-affiliated Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Gates-funded Sabin Vaccine Institute.
Other co-authors have received funding from pharmaceutical companies including Merck and Johnson & Johnson, and from the Meta- and Merck-owned Vaccine Confidence Fund. Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
It is unclear if any of these entities helped fund the study.
Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, said the study’s primary purpose “is to suggest how to tighten the vaccine mandate process in schools.”
Will study be used to push for more vaccine mandates?
Michael Kane, founder of Teachers for Choice, said the study shows “There is definitely a broader change in view of mandates and exemptions.”
But experts warned that the NIH study’s outcomes, far from representing a rebuke of establishment vaccine narratives, may encourage more states to enact legislation banning medical and religious exemptions for vaccination.
Scott C. Tips, president of the National Health Federation, said the study’s findings are a “silver lining,” but warned that figures like Gates are trying to “circumvent ‘vaccine hesitancy.’”
“They want to use [the study] to say, ‘Since schools don’t know how to say no to these exemptions, we just have to take away their ability to have any say,’” Kane said.
“If you are a legislator and you want to go back and repeal this band-aid, this study … gives you cover,” said attorney John Coyle, who has tried vaccine exemption cases in New Jersey. He called the study “a propaganda piece to persuade legislators to mandate.”
According to the study, many survey respondents “were unaware of their responsibility to deny invalid medical exemptions” under SB-277. Some school officials “harbor vaccine misconceptions” and “some do not support the very school immunization requirements which they are tasked with implementing and enforcing.”
The study called for vaccine education for school personnel and further involvement of school nurses in the implementation and enforcement of school immunization requirements, suggesting this “could have a positive impact on vaccine coverage and disease prevention.”
The study also suggested that SB-277 may have helped increase vaccine uptake among California children — but may also lead to an increase in the number of medical exemptions granted in the state.
According to the study, “many of these new medical exemptions were not for valid contraindications to vaccination.” The authors suggested this is “evidence of a replacement effect; some parents who would have obtained a nonmedical exemption likely instead obtained a medical exemption, even if unwarranted.”
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In some states, measles outbreaks led to elimination of vaccine exemptions
Notably, California’s passage of SB-277 is part of a pattern of states that have enacted legislation curtailing medical and/or religious exemptions for vaccination following measles outbreaks in those states.
According to a March 2020 article in the journal Epidemics, a “large measles outbreak” in California between December 2014 and March 2015 led to the infection of 131 Californians.
The outbreak was linked to Disneyland theme parks in the state, and “resulted in key changes in vaccine policy in California,” referring to the passage of SB-277.
A measles outbreak among schoolchildren in Rockland County, New York, in 2018 and 2019 led lawmakers to repeal all religious exemptions for vaccination in June 2019.
An increase in measles cases in Connecticut during the same period led to legislation in 2021 ending religious exemptions.
Will Hawaii be next state to abolish religious exemptions?
The Hawaii Legislature is considering Senate Bill 1437 and House Bill 1118, which would eliminate all non-medical exemptions in the state. This bill comes less than a year after Hawaii warned residents and visitors “to be on alert for measles.”
The proposed legislation is part of the legislative agenda of Democrat Hawaii governor — and doctor — Josh Green. Green has been outspoken in his support for vaccines — and in his criticism of the “anti-vaccine” stance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the newly confirmed secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Earlier this month, Green warned that states must be prepared for potentially “devastating” outbreaks of diseases such as measles and bird flu.
Silvers said she sees a connection between measles outbreaks and subsequent efforts to eliminate vaccination exemptions.
“How is it that a foretelling can occur in this way that then supports bills being introduced and passing?” Silvers asked. “The fear perpetuated by this foretelling creates hysteria, hijacks the higher functions of the brain, and people go into reactivity and unwarranted panic.”
Related articles in The Defender
- Public Support for Religious Exemptions Nearly Doubled Over Past 6 Years
- Hawaii Lawmakers Float Bill to Eliminate Religious Exemptions
- ‘Huge Win’: West Virginia Governor Issues Executive Order Allowing Religious Exemptions
- Two New Wins in Religious Exemption Lawsuits Add to String of Recent Victories
- The Case Against New York’s Repeal of Religious Exemption — What’s Next?
- As Public Support for Vaccines Tanks, Health Freedom Advocates Look to a Future of Helping Kids Detox
