A well-timed legal assault unraveled Mississippi’s stellar record in vaccinating kids

How a well-timed legal assault unraveled Mississippi’s stellar record in vaccinating kids Mississippi was forced to grant religious exemptions from vaccines. Now, doctors and public health officials brace for the fallout. NBC News

For the first time in more than 40 years, Mississippi began granting religious exemptions from the state’s strict requirement that every child receive five vaccines — diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; polio; hepatitis; measles, mumps and rubella; and chickenpox — before attending day care, public school or private school. 

...The change wasn’t a result of a vote or legislative action. Rather, it was a legal assault, the realized dream of a local conservative anti-vaccine club that had long tried and failed to change Mississippi’s laws — until it joined forces with a prominent national anti-vaccine organization on a well-timed lawsuit, filed in one of the country’s most conservative courts.

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