OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – A Senate committee has advanced a measure that would do away with the option for parents to claim a personal or philosophical exemption for their children’s school vaccinations.
The Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee passed Senate Bill 5481 on a voice vote Friday, a week after a House committee approved a more limited bill that would only remove the philosophical exemption for the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Both bills could be up for floor votes in their respective chambers in the coming weeks.
The legislation comes amid an outbreak that has sickened 65 people in Washington state, with all but one of the cases in Clark County, just north of Portland, Oregon. The Portland metropolitan area has seen four cases related to the outbreak in southwestern Washington.
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