It's back-to-school season, and as your children head back to the classroom, there are a lot of requirements, including being up to date on shots.
In Georgia, there are only two types of vaccination exemptions -- medical and religious. 13 Investigates why one type of exemption appears to have increased in parts of Central Georgia in recent years.
The North Central Health District includes 13 Central Georgia counties, and according to their data, religious vaccination exemptions have increased more than 7 percent in schools since 2013.
"Based on my religious beliefs, I've always knew that my child or children would not be vaccinated, so ClaraAnn has never had vaccinations," says Baldwin County mom Iris Hasty.
Hasty says she considers some of the ingredients in vaccines to be contaminants.
"According to the scripture here, putting that in our body would be against scripture because we should have holy bodies because they are temples," says Hasty.
Her 11-year-old daughter, ClaraAnn, is homeschooled, but if she did attend public or private school, the state of Georgia would require Iris to fill out a 'religious exemption' affidavit for her daughter and have it notarized.
"The main exemption we see is a religious exemption," says Macon pediatrician Dana Mayo. "We're seeing a rise of some of the vaccine preventable illnesses, so those kids are even more vulnerable."
From 2013 to 2017, the number of religious exemptions in the North Central Health District, which includes 13 central Georgia counties, increased from less than one percent to more than 7 percent.
Statewide, the number of recorded medical exemptions also increased, but remains at only 2 percent of the school populations being unvaccinated.
WMAZ asked DPH Public Information Officer Michael Hokanson why there's been an increase. He says "there is no barrier to requesting religious exemptions."
"Even if kids aren't going to school and aren't in that environment, like if they go to the grocery store with mom, that's an easy place to pick something up," says Mayo.
Mayo says as a doctor and a mother herself, she 'preaches the practice' of vaccines, but respects those who choose religious exemptions and would never "infringe on their rights."
"Just be open-minded about why someone doesn't. Sometimes it is because something bad has happened, sometimes it is because it's a belief and a very strong one," says Hasty.
Hasty says it is her personal choice and own interpretation of the Bible which leads her to keep her child unvaccinated.
According to data from the North Central Health District, Monroe County actually had the largest percentage of unvaccinated children in 2017, that number just under 1.5 percent of the surveyed students.
Ga. Exemptions by 13WMAZ on Scribd