It is June 2035. COVID-19 has long since become part of the regular winter respiratory burden,
in part due to the spread of less virulent variants, and in part due to additional vaccines and drug
treatments. The crisis years of 2020-2022 are a distant memory.
Meanwhile, Washington State has just had two measles outbreaks, totaling 120 cases, the largest
number of cases in decades. Most of them are children. Other Western states have also seen outbreaks.
Thankfully, there have been no deaths (typically about 1 in every 500 children with measles dies, so no
deaths at this scale is normal). Because of the recent outbreak, vaccination rates have recently risen
again in the state. Before the start of the outbreak, they were at about 90% overall, with variation
across the state (for example, 95% in Pierce County but 85% in San Juan County). As of now (i.e. June
2035), they seem to be above 95% in every county.
The legislature and governor are considering changes to current vaccination policies. These polices
require vaccinations for children entering child care, pre-school or school, with exemptions allowed on
medical and religious grounds. Washington State used to also have a philosophical (also called a
personal belief) exemption, but this was removed in 2019. A religious exemption requires that the
parents or guardian certify that their religious beliefs prohibit them from vaccinating their child; a
philosophical exemption is broader, in that they only need to certify that they are philosophically
opposed to vaccination for any reason, religious or not. Children who are home-schooled have no
measles vaccine requirement.
Here in June 2035, there are two competing bills in the legislature: one to remove the religious
exemption and one to add a philosophical (personal belief) exemption.
Task: You are a legislator in the Washington State House of Representatives. You must provide a public
statement on whether you support or oppose each bill. You can choose to support one or the other of
the bills, or to support neither and keep the status quo. (You can't support both, since this creates a
legal and logical contradiction). If you wish, you can also consider introducing your own bill to change
current policies in a different way.
Because you are a strong leader and effective politician, you want your statement to address the
concerns of different sides, not only those of your supporters. You aim to explain, in non-judgmental
language, that you understand both the costs and benefits of the different positions, but that in the end
you favor one side. And you aim to include in your statement a range of authoritative sources on the
effectiveness of vaccines, and their risks, as well as the nature of herd immunity and its impacts (see
note below on sources). Note that there is *no correct answer* in terms of whether you oppose or
support each bill. These bills involve tradeoffs between public safety and individual liberty which are
inherently unresolvable through science alone. There are, however, appropriate ways to employ and
explain accurate and authoritative information in explaining your position, and to do so using language
that encourages dialogue rather than division.

If you choose to draft an alternative bill with a different approach, you will need to explain the
alternative in the final question.
You have chosen to release your statement in the form of a Q&A. It must fit in a standard press release,
so your legislative assistant has given you strict word count limits. This assistant has experienced your
wordiness before; she says that she will not read beyond the word limits, so anything over them will be
ignored. Seriously - she is not kidding about this - she's a busy person with many tasks to complete.
Your legislative assistant really is awesome; she has already written the intro paragraph and the
questions for you, and you just need to type up the answers, in a separate document (no need to
include all of these instructions). Your legislative assistant will take it from there!
A note on sources. For this exercise, please include in-line citations to any facts or figures you bring into
the discussion. Use any format you wish as long as you are consistent. Reference the source in a short
form wherever you use it in your answer, for example (Goodreau 2018) or (CDC 2016). Provide a
bibliography of all sources at the end. The bibliography does not count in the word limit.
Sources must have a reasonable level of authoritativeness. This is a tricky concept to define absolutely.
At one end are highly authoritative sources like articles in the academic literature, or reports from
agencies like the Centers for Disease Control or the World Health Organization who are tasked with
sifting through all of the available data and synthesizing it for public use. At the other end are blogs by
individuals operating outside a professional context, which are not required to undergo any review by
anyone other than the author before being publicized, and for which the author is not professionally
responsible for the results. Of course, scientists are humans, and government agencies are made up of
humans, and neither can be assumed to be perfect or completely unbiased; a critical eye on the
potential limitations is always useful, here and in life generally. And information about trends in popular
perceptions or alternative perspectives may certainly be obtained through a consideration of individual
experiences such as those found in blogs and similar postings. Professional bloggers represent a
particularly challenging gray area these days.
A reminder: we discussed in class how the critical vaccination threshold for measles has been calculated
to be in the range of 90-95%. There is no need to do any calculations for this assignment - only to
understand this concept and think about what it really means in practice.
Some additional notes. Like many states, Washington has seen multiple changes to its vaccination rules
over the years. It had a philosophical exemption in place for measles for many years, and many states
still do. When Washington removed the philosophical exemption in 2019, the bill passed the State
House of Representatives 56 to 40 and the State Senate 25 to 22 - in other words, a division of opinion
here remains a very real part of our (and all) societies. Almost all states (including Washington) do not
require vaccination against COVID-19 to enter day care or K-12 school.

Draft letter to complete
Dear Constituents:
As you may have heard, the state legislature is considering House Bills 2178 and 2179, which would
remove the religious exemption for measles vaccinations in Washington State, or add a philosophical
(personal belief) exemption, respectively. In the former case, any child whose parents wish to send
them to day-care or school (public or private) would be required to provide their children with measles
vaccination, unless they had a medical condition that prevented them from receiving vaccines. In the
latter case, parents who opposed vaccinations but did not belong to a formal religious organization that
opposes vaccination would be exempted. In both cases, parents would still have the option to home-
school their children if they wished to opt out. I imagine that you have many questions about vaccines,
and about the bills and my stance on them, which I would like to answer here. Let me give you some
background, before I explain my position.
• "How does the measles vaccine work? Is it safe?" [max 150 words]
• "I have heard of cases of children developing a variety of conditions after the measles vaccine,
including autism. What do we know about the link between measles vaccination and autism or
other diseases? [max 100 words]
• Discussions of school vaccines often focus on the concept of "herd immunity." What is that, how
does it work, and why is it important here? [max 150 words]
• I have heard that vaccination rates are now above 95% on average in every county in Washington
State children, and that a 95% vaccination rate is high enough to prevent new epidemics of
measles. Is there really anything to worry about? [max 100 words]
• I have heard that most states do not require COVID-19 vaccines to attend school, but most do
require measles vaccines, even though COVID-19 has killed many Americans in the last 20 years,
and measles has not caused a single death in the US since 2015. Why is this the case?
• Given all of this, do you support HB 2178? HB 2179? Why or why not? 

 

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Dear Constituents As you may have heard the state legislature is considering House Bills 2178 and 2179 which would remove the religious exemption for measles vaccinations in Washington State or add a ... View the full answer