Michigan Vaccine Waiver Reform Backfires as Measles Cases Rise

A Michigan law designed to reduce vaccine exemptions among schoolchildren has unexpectedly backfired, producing the opposite of its intended effect. The state’s 2015 administrative rule requiring parents to attend in-person vaccine education sessions before obtaining nonmedical waivers initially succeeded — kindergarten waiver rates dropped by 32%. But in the post-COVID era, those same sessions have become hostile battlegrounds, driving resentment and pushing waiver rates to their highest level in more than a decade.

As of late May, Michigan has recorded 14 measles cases in 2026, with an outbreak in Washtenaw County spreading to neighboring Monroe County through community transmission. Statewide, only 66% of children ages 4-6 have received the recommended two doses of the MMR vaccine, down sharply from 89%, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

A Policy That Worked — Until It Didn’t

In 2014, Michigan had the fourth-highest vaccine waiver rate in the country. Health officials suspected many parents were signing waivers casually during the stress of school registration rather than out of deeply held conviction. “Oops, I forgot to do this. I’m just going to sign a waiver and be done with it — That’s not really the way we want parents to make decisions on this issue,” Norm Hess, executive director of the Michigan Association for Local Public Health, told NPR.

With Republicans controlling both the legislature and governor’s office in 2015, state health officials found a side door. They created an administrative rule requiring parents seeking nonmedical waivers to attend an in-person education session at their local health department about the risks of not vaccinating and the benefits of vaccination. Vaccine-choice advocates called it a “stealth move.” But it worked: kindergarten waiver rates dropped by 32% that year.

The Post-COVID Backlash

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally altered the landscape. Michigan had some of the most polarizing lockdowns in the nation, including the 2020 Whitmer administration restrictions that led to lawsuits and armed protests at the state capitol. This created deep distrust of public health authorities among a significant portion of the population.

By 2021, waiver rates began climbing again. The in-person education sessions transformed from informational meetings into hostile confrontations. Dr. Juan Marquez, medical director for Washtenaw and Livingston Counties, described the environment: “It was really creating an unsafe setting, actually, for our nurses. Our nurses are just trying to do their job. And you can imagine, to have somebody yell at you or just say not nice things to your face and sit through that for hours is demoralizing.”

Marquez noted that in a decade of conducting these sessions, he believes they changed the minds of perhaps one or two people. “If we’re not changing folks’ minds, can we do this in a safe way?” he asked.

Record Waiver Rates and Falling Immunization

The result: Michigan’s school vaccine waiver rate hit 6.2% in the 2024-2025 school year — the highest since 2013, according to WWMT/News Channel 3, citing MDHHS data. Waivers have steadily increased since 2021.

At some Michigan schools, only 30% to 40% of students are now vaccinated. Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigan’s chief medical executive, warned that in such communities, it is “simply not possible to keep diseases like measles at bay.” She added: “When one of these measles cases ends up in a low-immunization community, that’s when the ember really has a chance to expand and become a wildfire.”

The Hybrid Compromise

Facing an untenable situation, state health officials pivoted. They worked with the University of Michigan to create a standardized online course — a 20- to 30-minute module covering vaccine benefits and disease risks — that parents could complete from home. After taking the course, parents still had to go to their local health department in person to get waivers signed.

About a third of Michigan’s 83 counties have adopted this hybrid approach. State immunizations director Ryan Malosh initially worried the convenience would create a “sinkhole” of waiver requests. Instead, waiver rates in Livingston County, the pilot county, rose at the same pace as the rest of the state — not faster.

St. Clair County’s Defiance

But St. Clair County has gone further. Under medical director Dr. Remington Nevin, the county launched a fully online waiver certification system in April 2026, allowing parents to bypass the in-person signing requirement entirely. Nevin declared “a new era of vaccine choice” for parents who “felt pressured” into vaccinations.

In a January memorandum, Nevin wrote that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services “continues to impose administrative requirements that hinder parents’ ability to exercise these statutory exemption rights.” The county health board unanimously endorsed his approach. Norm Hess noted that no other health department has taken this approach, calling St. Clair “an outlier” in a Bridge Michigan report.

State health officials have declined to legally challenge St. Clair’s move, a decision that may reflect the political sensitivity of vaccine mandates in a state Donald Trump flipped in the 2024 presidential election.

A Measles Outbreak Takes Hold

The consequences of declining immunization are already visible. Michigan declared its first measles outbreak of 2026 on March 19 in Washtenaw County. By late May, the state had 14 confirmed cases, with community transmission spreading to Monroe County. State officials recommended infants as young as 6 months in seven southeast Michigan counties receive an accelerated first dose of the MMR vaccine, according to the Detroit News.

Nationally, over 1,350 measles cases were confirmed across 31 states in the first three months of 2026 alone — a dramatic escalation that public health experts attribute to falling vaccination rates and the policies of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has reduced the CDC’s recommended childhood vaccine schedule.

What’s Next

The story of Michigan’s vaccine waiver reform is a cautionary tale about the limits of administrative policy in an era of deep public health polarization. The very mechanism designed to reduce waivers — the in-person education session — became a driver of resentment that accelerated the trend it was meant to reverse.

Moving forward, the key questions are whether the hybrid online model can stabilize waiver rates, whether the state will eventually challenge St. Clair County’s fully online system, and whether public health authorities can rebuild trust with communities that have come to view them with suspicion. With measles outbreaks spreading and immunization rates far below the 95% threshold needed for herd immunity, the stakes for Michigan’s children have never been higher.