AAP News Vol. 15 No. 12 December 1999, p. 16
© 1999 American Academy of Pediatrics
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Tragedy spurs Oregon pediatricians to fight religious exemptions

AAP Division of State Government Affairs

It is a story all too familiar: A child dies of a preventable illness left untreated because the parents' religious practices prohibit medical care.

Reports of many such deaths in Oregon spurred pediatricians there to legislative action this year, yielding promising results for the state's children and a shot in the arm for the nationwide effort to repeal "religious exemption" statutes.

Spiritual treatment, sometimes referred to as "faith healing," is practiced throughout the United States. Due to the intense lobbying of its adherents, parents who fail to seek medical care for their ill children are immune from prosecution under criminal law, because of religious exemption statutes.