New York’s private schools are gaming vaccine exemptions in ‘obvious’ fraud

The shift, uncovered by a POLITICO analysis of state data, mirrors a similar outcome in California and highlights potential gaps in oversight and enforcement that medical experts warn could allow dangerous diseases to flourish. The revelation also comes as New York — the frequent epicenter of contagious outbreaks, from measles to West Nile — deals with a resurgence of polio, the continued spread of Covid-19 and at least one childhood case of monkeypox this year.

Leading the way in exemptions are religious and private schools, which have come under fresh scrutiny after a sweeping New York Times investigation into the quality of education provided at some Jewish religious schools.

“It’s pretty obvious that there is a fraud taking place — one that endangers the lives of people,” said Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz, a sponsor of the 2019 bill that removed nonmedical exemptions in response to a measles outbreak among a religious community.

“Clearly, things didn’t change for large numbers of children medically in that short period of time,” he said in an interview. “And unless some of these schools have a super high concentration of children who are cancer patients, for example, there is no plausible explanation as to why the rates are so high unless somebody is lying.”

A dubious rise

Each year, schools are required to report immunization data through a state survey — including the number of medical exemptions issued and how many students have received their required vaccines. While the state requires a battery of inoculations, its survey does not track reasons for exemptions or whether the exemptions apply to one, some or all required vaccinations. The survey records rates of immunization for polio, measles, mumps, chickenpox and other diseases, while also tracking the percent of students fully immunized at each school.

During the 2019-20 school year, campuses statewide reported 2,097 students with medical exemptions, accounting for 0.13 percent of students, though even schools with the highest medical exemption rates reached only 0.2 percent.

But in the 2020-21 school year — one year after religious carve-outs were eliminated and the latest year for which data is available — the number of medical exemptions ticked up to 2,650. The rate statewide remained at 0.1 percent, but the number of schools reporting higher-than-average exemption rates rose sharply.

That year, more than 1,000 schools reported medical exemptions exceeding the previous 0.2 percent high, and over 200 schools rose to 1 percent or more. Twenty-one schools reported exemption rates above 5 percent in 2020-21 — five of them exceeded 10 percent, and five more were above 20 percent. One school reported a medical exemption rate of more than 36 percent.

“It’s really, really unlikely that those are true medical exemptions,” said Jana Shaw, a professor of pediatrics at SUNY Upstate Medical University, after reviewing a portion of the state survey data provided by POLITICO.

While prior school years had seen schools rise above 0.2 percent, no school had hit 1 percent medical exemptions since the 2015-16 school year, when a single institution did,…