Requires immunization of schoolchildren
Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a controversial bill on Tuesday, June 30, requiring that schoolchildren be immunized, eliminating personal and religious belief exemptions.
“The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases,” the governor wrote. “While it’s true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community.”
The measure, Senate Bill 277, was crafted in February by Democrat Sens. Richard Pan, a pediatrician representing Sacramento, and Ben Allen, who represents Santa Monica, in response to a December measles outbreak originating in Disneyland. The outbreak affected more than 130 California residents and dozens more across the nation.
“No more preventable contagions. No more outbreaks. No more hospitalizations. No more deaths. And no more fear,” Pan told reporters at a news conference after the bill’s passage.
When the law goes into effect on July 1, 2016, California will join Mississippi and West Virginia in possessing stringent vaccination laws. It will require children to be immunized upon entering public school for the first time or when they enter seventh grade.
For children to enroll in public or private schools, they will be required to have had shots for diphtheria, measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib meningitis), tetanus, hepatitis B, varicella (chickenpox), poliomyelitis and rubella (German measles).
Those with personal belief exemptions obtained before 2016 will be allowed to retain them until they reach kindergarten or the seventh grade. Unvaccinated children who have personal belief exemptions and will enter seventh grade before 2016 will not be required to get immunized.
The new law exempts home-schooled and independent study children and those with a physician’s consent. Physicians will possess a broad authority to grant a medical exemption not only to children who have endured severe reactions to vaccines, but also those who have a family member who reacted adversely to a vaccine.
Widespread support
Many health and education organizations throughout the state have expressed support for the bill, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, whose officials touted the new law on Tuesday.
“The new requirement will ensure a safer and healthier environment for our schools,” the district said in a statement.
In April, the school board unanimously approved a resolution supporting the legislation. This past school year, approximately 90 students became sick with whooping cough and one came down with the measles.
Other supporters include the California Medical Association (CMA), California State PTA, California Immunization Coalition, California Children’s Hospital Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Richard Thorp, immediate past president of the CMA, thanked Brown and the Legislature for their leadership in supporting the bill, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
“SB 277 is based in fact and science and will help increase community immunity across the state,” Thorp said. “This is sound public health and we hope Governor Brown’s swift signature on the bill shows how important it is for California. We applaud his fast action to keep Californians safe.”
Hannah Henry, a parent of four and cofounder of Vaccinate California, told Forbes she got involved in supporting SB 277 because until recently, her kids attended a charter school where only half of the parents fully immunize their children.
“I thought it was interesting that immunization rates were falling, stayed away from conversations about science with new friends, and kept my kids up to date on their shots.
“And then measles arrived in California. And being quiet and nice about this issue seemed not only wrong but potentially dangerous,” she said.
Ariel Loop, another parent who said she was “ecstatic” that the bill is now a law, told Forbes her son was among those affected by the measles outbreak. He was four months old at the time and was too young to receive the MMR vaccine against the illness.
“It’s frustrating as it could have been prevented had our vaccination rates been higher. I hope that by the time he begins school, our vaccination rates will have increased enough so that we’ll have multiple safe options to pick from,” she said.
In a survey released Tuesday, data indicated that 90 percent of kindergarteners in California were up to date with mandatory immunizations in 2014. The rate in Los Angeles, however, fell slightly short at 86 percent. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said the lower number maybe be due to personal belief exemptions.
“Attaining the highest vaccination rates possible will ensure that our children and all residents are safe in the event that additional cases of measles or other vaccine-preventable diseases are imported in the future,” said Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, interim health officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. “We urge all parents and guardians to do their part to help keep our communities safe by vaccinating your children.”
Fight not yet over
Despite the support it has received, the measure has proved contentious, with opponents vowing to continue the fight against it either in court or through a ballot initiative.
On Wednesday, July 1, opponents of the tighter rules said they had composed a team of attorneys to challenge the measure, Reuters reported.
“The California Legislature just created a brand new group of second-class citizens, innocent healthy children who will permanently be barred from schools and day care because they haven’t received all doses of the vaccines on the schedule,” Melissa Floyd, a spokeswoman for the California Coalition for Health Choice, told the news agency. “This is discriminatory.”
Former Assemblyman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly also took action by filing paperwork with the state attorney general’s office for a statewide referendum on the legislation, Los Angeles Times reported.
“With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Brown took away a really important choice for parents to make,” Donnelly said Wednesday. “I just believe that decision belongs to the parents, not the government. This is not about vaccination. This is about choice.”
Supporters have 180 days to gather signatures from a minimum of 365,880 registered voters for a referendum to qualify for the ballot, according to the California secretary of state’s office.
The Associated Press reported that one state senator said backlash reached a point that led him to briefly close his district office out of concern for the safety of his staff.
Rebecca Estepp, a Poway resident with the advocacy group California Coalition for health Choice, told Los Angeles Daily News she was sad the bill was signed so quickly.
“[Gov. Brown] had 12 days to take action, and it seems like he did it in a matter of minutes, which is really unfortunate,” Estepp said.
San Pedro residents John and Andrea Stammreich, who have two children in Catholic school, told the Daily News their daughter reacted badly to a chickenpox shot six years ago.
“Our daughter had almost three months of uncontrollable shingles as a direct result of taking the chickenpox vaccination,” John said.
He added he wants to be able to decide when his children get vaccinated.
Andrea told the Daily News she was not opposed to vaccinations until her daughter had a reaction.
“For me, that was a big red flag, and it got me reading the inserts that came with the vaccine and looking at the ingredients they use and the stem cell lines they grow these materials on, and I am now completely opposed to vaccines in all forms,” she said. “I don’t see their benefit in today’s society with the advances of modern medicine. None of the so-called epidemics or dangerous diseases is life-threatening. I believe that modern medicine can handle the treatment for any of these illnesses.”
If forced to get vaccines, Andrea said they will privately home-school their children. She added that she and her husband are considering leaving California.
Hopes for more support
Dr. Pedram Salimpour, a pediatrician and president of the Los Angeles County Medical Association, told the Daily News he hopes parents will be more willing to accept the years of research that supports immunization.
“We were able to convince the governor that science trumps emotion,” Salimpour said. “We’re very grateful for his posture toward the betterment of public health and to protect children.”
Although the new law could face legal challenges, Pan said, “The courts have been very clear that you don’t have a right to spread a communicable disease, that there’s a public interest in keeping our communities safe from disease,” according to The Sacramento Bee.
Brown’s decision on Tuesday reflects the opinion of two-thirds of Californians, who, according to a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, believe children should not be allowed to attend public school if they are not immunized.
(With reports from Forbes, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Reuters, The Associated Press and The Sacramento Bee)
