LA Times – by PATRICK MCGREEVY AND RONG-GONG LIN II
California lawmakers on Thursday approved one of the toughest mandatory vaccination requirements in the nation, moving to end exemptions from state immunization laws based on religious or other personal beliefs.
The measure, among the most controversial taken up by the Legislature this year, would require more children who enter day care and school to be vaccinated against diseases including measles and whooping cough.
Those with medical conditions such as allergies and immune-system deficiencies, confirmed by a physician, would be excused from immunization. And parents could still decline to vaccinate children who attend private home-based schools or public independent studies off campus.
It is unclear whether Gov. Jerry Brown will sign the measure, which grew out of concern about low vaccination rates in some communities and an outbreak of measles at Disneyland that ultimately infected more than 150 people.
“The governor believes that vaccinations are profoundly important and a major public health benefit, and any bill that reaches his desk will be closely considered,” Evan Westrup, the governor’s spokesman, said Thursday.
If the bill becomes law, California will be the 32nd state to deny exemptions grounded in personal or moral beliefs, but only the third to bar exceptions based on religious convictions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Medical experts, including Dr. Luther Cobb, president of the California Medical Assn., hailed Thursday’s vote by the state Assembly as key to keeping deadly but preventable diseases in check.
“We’ve seen with this recent epidemic that rates of immunization are low enough that epidemics can be spread now,” Cobb said. “The reasons for failing to immunize people … are based on unscientific and untrue objections, and it’s just a good public-health measure.”
“People think these are trivial illnesses,” he said. “These are not. People die from measles.”
The measure, which had passed the state Senate but must return there for the expected approval of minor amendments, sparked impassioned debate among lawmakers and the public.
The dispute has sometimes been acrimonious.
Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a pediatrician and an author of the bill, has received death threats. And opponents of the proposal have filed papers with the state to initiate the process of recalling Pan and Sen. Bill Monning (D-Carmel), a vocal supporter, from office.
Hundreds of parents besieged the Capitol during a series of legislative hearings to oppose the bill in the belief that vaccines are unsafe, that the proposal would violate their privacy rights and that they alone — not the state — should choose whether to vaccinate their children.
More gathered for the vote on Thursday.
“This bill puts the state between children and parents regardless of your
position on vaccination,” said Luke Van der Westhuyzem, a parent from Walnut Creek who was among dozens of protesters at the Capitol.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), who voted for the measure, said she understood the personal nature of parents’ decisions about their children’s health.
“While I respect the fundamental right to make that decision as a family,” Gonzalez told her colleagues, “we must balance that with the fact that none of us has the right to endanger others.”
Assemblyman Mike Gatto, a Glendale Democrat, voted against the bill, saying it violated parental rights.
“The broadness of this bill likely dooms it from a constitutional standpoint,” Gatto said, accusing the state of “infringing on the rights of children to attend school.”
More than 13,500 California kindergarten students currently have waivers based on their parents’ beliefs. A parent group, A Voice For Choice, found Thursday’s vote “unsettling,” spokeswoman Christina Hildebrand said.
If Brown signs it, she said, her organization plans to challenge the measure in court or with a referendum.
“We are pulling out all the stops,” she said. “This bill is unconstitutional.”
Dr. Catherine Sonquist Forest, medical director of the Stanford Health Care clinic in Los Altos, said immunizing more people is essential to protect babies too young to receive vaccines.
“This isn’t a question of personal choice,” Forest said. “This is an obligation to society.”
Forest is caring for a 4-year-old boy dying of a rare complication of measles that infected his brain. He was infected when he was 5 months old and too young to be vaccinated.
Ariel Loop is a Pasadena mother whose 4-month-old boy, Mobius, contracted the measles during the Disneyland outbreak. She expressed relief that lawmakers approved the proposal.
“I’m hoping Jerry Brown does the right thing and signs it once it gets through the last Senate [vote],” Loop said.
The bill, SB 277 by Pan and Democrat Benjamin Allen of Santa Monica, passed the Assembly on a bipartisan 46-to-31 vote.
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com
Twitter: @mcgreevy99
ron.lin@latimes.com
Twitter: @ronlin
Times staff writer Kurt Chirbas in Sacramento contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times
They need to do like the New Yorkers did with gun registration and just say NO! When the daycare businesses and government run schools get hurt in their pocketbooks they will give in. That’s how it works isn’t it?
Get rid of the wet backs, then you will get rid of diseases that have been brought across from garbage infested countries that live in filth.
California is shooting themselves in the foot with this one. No one wants their kids vaccinated because they understand the dangers. (this movement is another indication of how many people are “awake” out there)
People will pull their kids out of school rather than allow them to be injected with poisons, and you’re going to see the emergence in California of underground day care and schooling facilities.
They’re shooting themselves in the foot because they get federal funding for their schools based on how many kids are in attendance (that’s why teachers keep attendance records), and that’s going to drop through the floor. I just read of a town going bankrupt over this. (but I forget where)
And they’ll go after the poor parents or should i say poor parent first who financially can’t fight back. And have cps waiting in the wings.
We have just as much a right to say no, as they have a right to say yes.
All this b.s. over people who got sick from a disease no one died from is retarded.
Correction: that one child is supposedly dying from because he had other health issues.
Either right out the gate or from his first round of vaccinations.
They didn’t mention any of that. Only that he was too young for the measles vaccine.
Notice the names, Ariel Loop and Mabius.
Next Dr Sonquist Forest clinic in Los Altos.
Need i say more
These lying leaders have the nerve to say no one has the right to endanger another’s life. While at the same time poisoning our water supplies with chemicals that or not even allowed in creeks rivers lakes or streams in fact on the bag of fluoride it has skull and bones and the very fact these chemicals or not even allowed in the oceans yet they allow it to be put in our drinking water in most of the state. Yet they want to pretend they care about our health. If they were so concerned about it then surely poisoning the water of millions of us is far more deadly than a measles outbreak.Its time we rid our government of these brain dead legislators. Poison is a death sentence no matter how long it takes to destroy a life. Million of us are exposed to this mess because our leaders allow it. Get them all thrown out of office, they are not fit to serve or clean a sewage line. They stink to high heaven with their so called concern for life.Lying thugs in suits we have had enough of them.
My first instinct is to ask ‘why would a parent take a 4 month old to Disney?’
There is no point to it, as at that age they will not remember it.
I would also like to point out the fact that the ‘medical community’ insists on being ‘involved’ with every living person, from the time of pregnancy until death.
Parents (single or otherwise) are told to take the youngsters for ‘well-child’ checkups, where they constantly push vaccines. Even if a vaccine is turned down by a parent, they will ask again every time. (so much for their “notes”)
Also, every time anyone goes to a doctor’s office (or hospital, clinic, whatever)
those persons are exposed to bacteria, germs, and nasty stuff in general, which can take a healthy person and render them unhealthy.
I’d be willing to bet that many in the ‘medical community’ are vested in the ‘death industry’… i.e. funeral homes, crematoriums, and related objects.
I remember reading (a long time ago) that the Bush family at least used to be involved in that.
Glad I left.