THE state Senate approved a controversial bill on Thursday, May 14, that would eliminate California’s personal belief exemptions for vaccinations and require that schoolchildren be immunized.
The measure, introduced by Democratic Sens. Richard Pan of Sacramento and Ben Allen of Santa Monica, would allow for medical exemptions but deny those based on personal and religious objections.
“Vaccines are necessary to protect us. That protection has been eroding,” said Pan, a pediatrician. “The science is clear: vaccines are safe and efficacious.”
If the bill becomes law, California would become one of three states – after Mississippi and West Virginia – that doesn’t permit personal or religious exemptions in vaccine laws.
After a long and contentious debate, the authors of bill SB277 agreed to key compromises that allowed it to move forward in a mostly partisan 25-10 vote. Among amendments incorporated into the legislation was a limit of 10 required vaccines, as a way to address concerns of a continually growing list of shots. Authors also eliminated a requirement for schools to inform parents of immunization, a change that allowed the bill to bypass the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The bill also includes a provision for unvaccinated children to be homeschooled or enroll in independent study programs.
But perhaps the most crucial compromise was the “grandfathering in” of many of California’s more than 13,000 children attending public and private schools, who had no vaccinations by first grade due to parents’ claims of personal belief exemptions. With this amendment, these children will not be required to get shots until they enter seventh grade. Furthermore, the nearly 10,000 seventh-graders who are currently not fully vaccinated may be able to avoid future shots, as the state does not necessarily require them after that grade.
“By scaling back the bill’s reach, their chance of success becomes much greater,” said Dan Schnur, director of the University of Southern California’s Unruh Institute of Politics, according to San Jose Mercury News.
Despite its passage in the Senate, the bill is expected to face continued opposition, with critics vowing to keep fighting as it heads into the Assembly.
“This is not the end,” said Jenna Elfman, a Los Angeles actress and mother who vaccinates her own children but opposes the bill and believes parents “need to protect our rights.”
“People need to keep showing up and exercising their right to free speech,” she said.
Parents against SB277 say their aren’t necessarily opposed to vaccinations, but are angry with the idea of the state leaving them only the choices of immunizing their children or homeschooling them.
Republican state senators made arguments for religious objections, including Sen. Mike Morrell of Rancho Cucamonga.
“It tells deeply devout families that the government thinks it knows better,” he said.
Sen. Joel Anderson of Alpine said certain religious individuals may not agree to vaccines derived from the cells of aborted fetuses.
“What this [bill] says is we don’t have a right to practice our faith,” he told his colleagues, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“Why is it a religious exemption is so scary to this Senate body?” he added.
While the vote mainly followed party lines, two democrats cast their votes against SB227.
Sen. Richard Roth from Riverside, a democrat, was one of the two from his party, citing concerns about the list of mandatory vaccines.
“I’m not sure there was a full explanation,” he said.
Gov. Jerry Brown has indicated support for the bill, although he may request that lawmakers include a religious exemption.
“I would be surprised if he didn’t sign it, because of the public health issues involved,” said Jack Pitney, a politics and government professor at Claremont McKenna College, according to the Mercury News. “I think the governor, on one hand, is sensitive to parental rights, but also sees public health as a major responsibility of his.”
As the bill moves forward, Lisa Bakshi, a mother from Placer County said the only thing parents against vaccinations can do now is continue to educate officials.
“The parents who do it now do it for very legitimate reasons. We don’t do it because we are uninformed,” she said.
Pan and Allen introduced SB277 following a measles outbreak originating in Disneyland late last year, which affected about 130 people in California. The outbreak was declared to have come to an end last month.
(With reports from Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News and The Sacramento Bee)
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(LA Weekend May 16-19, 2015 Sec. A pg.7)
