By Steven Allen Adams for The Intelligencer
CHARLESTON – The question of whether to require public and private school students to be vaccinated is now before a Raleigh County court after a Kanawha County judge dismissed the case of two parents seeking to require West Virginia health officials to follow state law.
In a hearing Wednesday afternoon at the Kanawha County Judicial Building in downtown Charleston, 8th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Ballard granted a motion filed by the West Virginia Department of Health to dismiss a request for a writ of mandamus filed in May by the ACLU of West Virginia and Mountain State Justice.
The groups filed the lawsuit on behalf of Kanawha and Cabell County parents asking the courts to order state health officials to follow State Code 16-3-1, requiring children attending school to show proof of immunization for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and hepatitis B unless proof of a medical exemption can be shown.
