U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Mingo County Lawsuit

{Washington, D.C.}...The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a writ of certiorari filed in July by the Virginia-based Rutherford Institute challenging West Virginia's immunization statute. In April 2009, Jennifer Workman filed a suit against the Mingo County Board of Education, Dr. Steven L. Paine, Dwight Dials and the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. Workman claimed she decided against immunizing her daughter after another child suffered health problems from an earlier vaccination. However, state law does not allow children to be admitted to school unless they have been immunized for diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough, unless a physician presents the patient with a permanent medical exemption. Workman claims she received the certificate from a child psychiatrist, but the request was denied, and her daughter was asked to leave Lenore Pre-K to 8 School. The suit states that a local head start program accepted the certificate, but once Workman's daughter completed the program, Mingo County schools refused to admit her. Workman accused school board officials of violating state code by not accepting the psychiatrist's certificate and additionally argued that immunizations are against her religion. Last March, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond unanimously rejected Workman's claim that the immunization mandate violated her religious rights.