To: The Maryland State House, The Maryland State Senate, and Governor Larry Hogan

End Non-Medical Vaccine Exemptions in Maryland

We are petitioning the Maryland State Government to make vaccines mandatory for all K-12 Maryland school children, except for those with specific medical conditions.

Why is this important?

Public health officials have tied the rise in pertussis and measles to the lowering of the vaccination rate. If this trend continues, the immunity of the entire population is threatened (known as ‘herd immunity’). Dangerous communicable diseases will spread further, and will also affect people who have been vaccinated—those with weakened immune systems, the very young, the very old, and the like.
This petition seeks to address falling vaccination rates by requiring all children to be vaccinated in order to attend Maryland schools unless they have a medical condition that precludes it.

"The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death. Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves, but it does not follow that they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children." Justice Wiley B. Rutledge Prince v. Massachusetts