A bill to end religious exemptions to vaccines collapsed in New Jersey this week, leading to contention between anti-vaxxers and parents concerned about their kids coming in contact with infectious diseases, CBS reported.
The bill would have required parents of unvaccinated children to take their students out of public schools in New Jersey, forcing them into private schools or home school, per the report.
It will go back up for debate in New Jersey next week, after failing to get the votes to pass in the State Senate Monday, according to "CBS This Morning."
"We're ready to go to war on this, and we will," New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Democrat, told PBS-N.J. "We will pass this bill. It's not an easy one, and a lot of bills we do aren't easy and take time to get through. But this is about public health. It's about protecting people."
Support for vaccination is down 10 points since 2001 in a Gallup poll cited by CBS.
"The folks who opposed this deserve credit for putting together a pretty amazing grassroots effort, but now what comes next?" State Sen. Declan O'Scanlon, a Republican, told PBS-N.J., "Do we bury our heads in the sand and hope that the resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases just goes away?"
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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