Between 1990 and 1991, Philadelphia suffered a large measles epidemic. About 1,400 children were infected, hundreds were hospitalized, and 9 died. The outbreak centered on two large fundamentalist churches in the city, Faith Tabernacle and First Century Gospel, which chose not to vaccinate their children for religious reasons. Among church members, about 500 people were infected and 6 died. Among non-church members in the surrounding community, about 900 were infected and 3 died. Parents in those two religious communities had chosen to put their children and the community’s children at risk, neither of whom had had a say in the matter.
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As an attending physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia during this outbreak, I was angry that these two churches had put children in harm’s way—angry that so much suffering and death had occurred in the name of religion. The experience inspired me to write a book titled, Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine. I intended the book to be a polemic against any religion that enabled this level of unnecessary suffering. But after speaking with the chaplain at our hospital, Laura Palmer, I changed my mind. She, too, was angry. But for a different reason. “This isn’t religion,” she said. “These people aren’t representing the teachings of Jesus, who cared deeply about children.” She pointed to a passage in Matthew that read, “Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me.” Jesus, she argued, stood up for children. Putting children at risk was the opposite of his prophesy. Laura Palmer changed my mind. My book evolved from an “anti-religion” book, to a “this isn’t religion” book. The epigraph of the book reads, “To all those who perform good deeds in the name of their faith.”
Anti-vaccine activists have now turned to religion to further their war against vaccines, which has caused more hospitalizations and deaths from measles, influenza, and whooping cough than we have seen in decades. In 2023, Aaron Siri, the lawyer representing an anti-vaccine group called the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), filed a federal lawsuit against Mississippi arguing that the U.S. Constitution requires states to provide religious exemptions to vaccination. Mississippi, which at the time only allowed medical exemptions to vaccination, had the highest rate of vaccination and one of the lowest rates of vaccine preventable diseases in the United States. ICAN won the lawsuit. Dr. Anita Henderson, a Mississippi pediatrician, said“pediatricians throughout the state are alarmed and concerned by the recent ruling.” She had a right to be worried. Although ICAN won the lawsuit, children lost. Thousands of Mississippi parents then filed for religious exemptions. Vaccination rates dropped. Soon, Mississippi had the highest rates of whooping cough in more than a decade. In 2025, the state recorded its first death from whooping cough in 13 years.
“Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.” — Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops
Del Bigtree, the head of ICAN, was excited about the Mississippi court ruling. “The real question,” wrote Bigtree, “is science versus God…Who told you that you weren’t perfect to begin with? Who told you that you needed ninety vaccines to be allowed to live? That lie has become the largest religion in the world today, and I say that as a fact.” Due to Del Bigtree’s efforts, more children in Mississippi are now forced to suffer preventable illnesses. (For the record, children receive vaccines to prevent 17 different infections, not 90.)
Anti-vaccine activists also have a friend in President Donald Trump. On August 10, 2026, Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general to pursue legal action against states that didn’t provide religious exemptions to vaccination; specifically, California, Connecticut, Maine, New York, and West Virginia. Those five states have some of the highest rates of immunization and lowest rates of vaccine-preventable illnesses in the country. Not surprisingly, they have been the most successful states at controlling the current measles epidemic.
The battle over religious exemptions to vaccines recently took a surprising turn. On July 31, 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a letter to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops insisting that Catholic schools must now grant religious exemptions to vaccination for school entry or jeopardize the schools’ eligibility for state-funded scholarships and voucher programs. Uthmeier wrote that there was “no legitimate religious reason” to refuse a religious exemption to vaccination. The Church disagreed, writing, “Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.”
Florida’s Catholic bishops, by standing up for the health and well-being of children in their care, taught us what it really means to be religious.
Paul A. Offit, MD, is director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. This piece originally ran on his Substack, Beyond the Noise!
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