St. Clair County makes it easier for parents to opt out of vaccines

St. Clair County’s health department is making it easier for parents to get a vaccine waiver for their children
County officials are also reminding parents of their ability to opt out of the state’s immunization registry
The county medical director endorses the CDC’s new vaccine recommendations — a reduced list of shots that remains endorsed by leading medical groups

A Michigan county health department Monday made it easier for parents to opt out of having their children vaccinated.

In St. Clair County parents now will be able to obtain vaccine waivers any time during regular business hours, rather than having to make appointments. Those parents will receive a “certified state waiver form” after they receive a single-page educational handout, according to the Monday announcement by the St. Clair County Health Department.

The health department is working toward a “fully online process,” that the St. Clair Advisory Board of Health recommended as part of an effort to “streamline” nonmedical vaccine exemptions.

According to a spokesperson for the health department, the educational handout satisfies a state requirement that parents attend a vaccine education session before receiving a nonmedical waiver for their children.

“Unfortunately, MDHHS continues to impose administrative requirements that hinder parents’ ability to exercise these statutory exemption rights,” countymedical director Dr. Remington Nevin wrote in a memorandum Jan. 14 to the county’s health advisory board. “These administrative requirements, while presented as educational, often create significant inconvenience and thus discourage parents from availing themselves of the exemptions provided under Michigan law.”

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It appears St. Clair is an outlier.

“I’m not seeing any other health department take this approach,” said Norm Hess, executive director of the Michigan Association for Public Health, which represents the state’s local health departments.

The decision follows a contentious Jan. 21 meeting where members of the county’s health board unanimously endorsed Nevin’s memorandum to emphasize “the primacy of a patient’s or parent’s relationship with a trusted physician or health care provider in their choice of vaccines.”

The approach, Nevin wrote, is an effort to regain trust in public health after COVID-19 “missteps.”

The department has also approved “updated messaging” to remind parents of their ability to keep their children’s vaccine records from being included in the state’s immunization database, the Michigan Care Improvement Registry, or MCIR, according to the Monday announcement.

“Paper vaccination records remain an appropriate option for families who choose to opt-out of state vaccine data tracking,” the health department’s announcement read.

The system — pronounced “micker” — enables doctors to track their pediatric patients’ vaccines. It also allows the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to track vaccine rates by county and by school district.

Since 1978, Michigan has required a set of vaccines for kindergarteners that protect against diseases such as mumps, measles and rubella, (the MMR shot), and other vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus and rubella (the DTaP shot). Under Michigan’s administrative rules, parents and guardians must attend a “vaccine education session” before they receive a nonmedical waiver for their children.

But in recent years, some residents and government leaders have pushed back against recommendations. Fueled by hesitation over the COVID vaccine, rates of other immunizations have fallen too.

In St. Clair County, vaccination rates have declined over the last decade and rates are below Michigan’s average, according to state data. Among school-aged children in the county, about 88.1% have completed the immunization schedule with 8.6% receiving an exemption waiver as of February 2025. 80.9% of children at child care centers have completed the vaccine schedule, with 9.5% seeking an exemption waiver.

Nevin declined Bridge’s request for comment. Health Officer-Director Liz King was unavailable, according to department spokesperson Lauren Kriewell.

This week’s development also followed the county health board’s endorsement last month of recent decisions by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce the number of recommended routine vaccines — a policy opposed by the state health department, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics among other leading medical groups.

State health officials did not immediately comment about the St. Clair announcement. However, department spokesperson Lynn Sutfin noted that “the underlying scientific evidence remains unchanged” that vaccines protect against disease.

In his memorandum, Nevin said MCIR will continue to advise parents that their child is overdue for certain shots that no longer are recommended by the CDC. He called for “alternatives” to participation in the MCIR.

“Nothing is going to change for folks that want to get vaccines and want their children to get vaccines,” Nevin said during the meeting. “But what will change is that parents who felt coerced … they are going to experience a new era of vaccine choice in St. Clair County.”

Michigan for Vaccine Choice commended the board’s decision as a response to the “erosion of public trust in health agencies” that promotes the preference for “voluntary, informed decisions over universal recommendations or administrative pressure.”

Hess, at the public health association, said he isn’t worried that St. Clair’s announcement may dilute public health messaging that stresses the importance of vaccines over the availability of exemptions.

“Disagreement about public health policy is normal and expected. In Michigan, with its long public health tradition, there continues to be broad professional consensus around evidence-based approaches to protecting children, including vaccination,” he said in an email to Bridge.

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