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Your choices

The law allows each choice below. Read what each one covers.

An exemption is a paper that says a shot rule does not apply to this person.

Before you decide: what each shot is for, and your rights

Choice 1. Religious exemption
The state says
The state's shot law offers only a medical exemption.A federal court ordered the state to offer a religious one too.It started July 15, 2023.The court made the order permanent on August 29, 2023.The state health department still takes requests under that order.Bills to write it into state law in 2025 and 2026 did not pass.An exemption is a paper that lets a child skip a shot.
You do
1.Call 855 767 0170 to book a county health department visit for each child.2.Bring your child and a photo ID. You may fill out the top of the state's Religious Exemption Request form first.3.At the visit, watch a short video about shots and talk with a nurse.4.The state mails you Form 122.5.Give a copy of Form 122 to the school each year.
The paper
Religious Exemption Request (Form 139-R), which MSDH turns into a Certificate of Medical/Religious Exemption (Form 122). The state publishes the form. Finish the state's education class first. How long it lasts: None: the religious Form 122 is permanent. Give the school a copy each year, and ask the state for an updated Form 121 when your child moves up to the next age or grade group. Open the form
Source. law.justia.com, storage.courtlistener.com, msdh.ms.gov, billstatus.ls.state.ms.us
Get the state form
Choice 2. The shot record
You do
1.Ask the doctor's office or the health department for a copy.2.Put one copy for each student in your folder.
The paper
The shot record from the doctor's office or the health department.
Choice 3. Medical exemption
The state says
The state's shot law allows a medical exemption.A doctor fills out the state's Medical Exemption Request form.The doctor must be your child's pediatrician, family doctor or internist, licensed in Mississippi.A pediatrician is a children's doctor.A specialist outside the state who treats your child may sign too. The state decides those one at a time.The doctor marks each shot as permanent or temporary.The state health department reviews it and sends back Form 122.
You do
1.Ask your child's doctor to fill out and sign that form.2.The doctor sends it to the state health department by mail or by fax to 601 576 7686.3.Keep the Form 122 the state sends back.
The paper
MSDH Medical Exemption Request (Form 139-M), which MSDH turns into a Certificate of Medical/Religious Exemption (Form 122). A doctor signs it. How long it lasts: None if the doctor marks it permanent; a temporary one ends on its date, at least one school year unless the request says otherwise.

Everywhere in America

Where a shot record actually gets asked for, and where it does not.

School enrollment: Enrolling a child in a school, public, private or religious, means handing that school an immunization certificate or an exemption, because each state writes its own school rule.
Licensed daycare and preschool: A state's school rule usually reaches licensed child care too, and the word that decides it is licensed. A drop in nursery or a parents day out below the licensing line is usually outside it.
Club and recreation sports: A club asks for age, fees and a sports physical. The playing rules US Youth Soccer publishes carry no immunization condition, and neither do Little League's published eligibility rules. A shot rule turns up when the venue does it: a school gym, a hospital, a licensed camp.
Scouting: Scouting America's annual health form asks for a tetanus shot within the last 10 years, and Scouting America publishes an immunization exemption request form for families who decline.
Summer camp: A camp accredited by the American Camp Association has to collect a health history from every camper, and the association's own guidance says a signed refusal counts as the record.
Dual enrollment: A community college course, and coursework taken online, often sits outside a state's college immunization law. North Carolina and Texas both write that exclusion into their own statutes.
Living on campus: Both of those statutes are written around the student who is on campus full time, so the moment to plan for is the first full time semester on a campus.
Enlisting: Nobody is turned away from enlistment for being unvaccinated. Recruits are immunized by the military in their first days of basic training.
Healthcare training: A nursing or allied health student can be admitted to the program and still be blocked from the clinical hours, because the clinical site, not the college, decides which exemptions it accepts.
Travel abroad: Some countries ask for proof of yellow fever vaccination on an international certificate before letting a traveler in. A doctor can write a medical waiver on that certificate, and the destination country may or may not accept it.

State Setup & Compliance

Mississippi

Your choices

Choice 1. Religious exemption

Choice 2. The shot record

Choice 3. Medical exemption

Good to know