By Susan K. Livio | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on November 19, 2014 at 9:44 AM, updated November 19, 2014 at 6:20 PM TRENTON — The number of school children in New Jersey who were permitted to skip their shots last year because parents claimed vaccinations violate their religious beliefs is more than five times greater than it was eight years ago, according to state health department data. The vast majority of the school children last year still have received the battery of shots the law requires. But the number of exemptions sought on religious grounds has grown from 1,641 in the 2005-06 academic year to 8,977 in the 2013-14 year. The largest number of exemptions were sought in Hunterdon, Monmouth, Warren and Sussex counties, according to the data, the most recent available. When coupled with the 1,592 children who did not receive the shots for medical reasons last year, just 2 percent of the student population is unvaccinated, the state data said. The steady rise in the number of religious exemptions worries pediatricians and infectious disease specialists who say parents don’t realize they could be putting their children at risk, and want lawmakers to make it tougher to opt out of vaccines. Seeking a religious exemption in New Jersey is not difficult, noted Margaret Fisher, a prominent pediatric disease specialist who works at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch. A parent need only to submit a signed statement indicating, “immunization interferes with the free exercise of the pupil’s religious rights,” according to the health department website. “Most young mothers have never seen these diseases. They have this perfectly normal baby and they don’t want them injected for some virus they have never seen. You can understand their hesitancy,” said Fisher, who said she has been practicing long enough to see children suffer and die from what are now preventable diseases. “It makes our religious exemption really a philosophic exemption,” Fisher said. “When people don’t immunize their children, they set up pockets of under-immunized children.” But the founder of an organization that promotes vaccine choice defended a parent’s right to consider the risks rather than just blindly following the state protocols. “This is still a small number, and I don’t see those numbers as alarming,” said Sue Collins of Long Hill, who co-founded the New Jersey Alliance for Informed Choice in Vacination. “If more people are understanding what their legal rights are and what the laws of New Jersey are, that is a good thing.” Vaccine compliance across the state is high enough to avoid the major outbreaks of whooping cough and measles seen in California, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Washington, typically spread through international travel, Fisher said. According to the 2013 National Immunization Survey, New Jersey ranked 22nd in the nation for vaccine compliance for children, with 72.9 percent of New Jersey children ages 19-35 months receiving the recommended vaccine doses according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The national average vaccination rate is 70.4 percent, according to the CDC. Rhode Island scored the highest vaccination rate with 82.1 percent; Arkansas has the lowest rate, at 57.1 percent. The standard vaccine regimen provides protection against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella, influenza, hepatitis B and chickenpox. New Jersey continues to make steady progress in recent years improving its vaccination rates, state Health Commissioner Mary O’Dowd said, who in a statement noted "as a percentage of all school students who need to be vaccinated, more than half a a million, those with religious exemptions in NJ remains very small." "Immunization is one of the best ways parents can protect their infants from serious childhood diseases before age two," O'Dowd said in a recent statement. "Through immunization, we have made great strides in drastically reducing infant death and disability in the United States." Last year, New Jersey had 15 cases of measles, but 12 were in the same family after international travel, O'Dowd's spokeswoman Donna Leusner said. There is a small but determined group of parents, however, whose mistrust of pharmaceutical companies and doctors have driven them to do their own research. Many of whom are from the most educated and affluent areas of the state. A bill introduced in the legislature several times over the years that would tighten the religious exemption statute to require a letter from a clergy member, and a detailed explanation from a family on how their religious beliefs conflict with vaccines has failed to gain traction. Politically, the issue is “a hot potato” that health and school officials have been loathe to take on, Fisher said. During the previous administration, for instance, health officials said with the number of unvaccinated children below 2 percent, “they did not want anything to do with taking on the religious exemption,” she said. The issue is rarely raised at the local school board level. “We’re aware the numbers of parents seeking the exemption have increased,” said Jeanette Rundquist, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. “We get a few inquiries each year from districts about what the law requires, usually in the spring, when districts are registering children. But this has not been raised as an issue at our Delegate Assembly, which is NJSBA’s governing body.” Both sides in the vaccination debate claim their adversaries don’t understand each other’s concerns. Christian Science is the only religion that rejects medical interventions as a tenant of itsr faith, said Fisher, past president of the New Jersey chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, but she wonders how many families in New Jersey follow this religion. According to christianscience.com, "It’s up to each person who practices Christian Science to choose the form of health care he or she wants. Many Christian Scientists decide to pray first about every challenge—including health issues—and find it effective." Collins said many medical professionals don’t understand why people are against vaccinations. “They assume someone who is opposed to vaccines is opposed to medical interventions of any kind. We’re opposed to injecting something that could harm a child when they are completely healthy,” Collins said. Some parents who are the most hesitant are they ones whose children are diagnosed with developmental delays or are medically fragile, or their oldest children have had a negative reaction to a vaccine and won’t risk it on their younger kids, said Rita O’Grady of Clinton, whose son has multiple disabilities. “Religious beliefs can be very personal and it is not anyone in state government’s right to decide what you believe, and how you practice your religion,” said Collins, whose 15-year-old and 17-year-old children are not vaccinated. Her faith tells her that because her children were born with immune systems, “I trust that God is going to oversee them and a higher power will protect them.” Additionally, people who believe life begins at conception and oppose abortion object to vaccines that are manufactured with fetal tissue, Collins said. But vaccine manufacturers whose products rely on fetal tissue are using “immortalized cell tissue. We are not using tissue from newly abortion fetuses," Fisher said. Fisher noted the Catholic Church, which is adamantly anti-abortion, does not discourage people from vaccines. “These vaccine-hesitant people are not uneducated. They are highly educated and wealthy and have an incredible fear of science that amazes me,” Fisher said. “They are as passionate as I am on the other side.” Source: Nearly 9,000 N.J. school children skipped vaccinations on religious grounds last year