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California approves mandatory vaccination for public schoolchildren Mandatory vaccination bill for public schools passes California legislature
(about 2 hours later)
California lawmakers have approved a hotly debated mandatory vaccination law that would require nearly all public schoolchildren to be vaccinated even if their parents have a personal or religious objection. Four months after a measles outbreak that began at the Disneyland theme park ran its cross-country course, the California general assembly on Thursday approved a bill that would require all children in public schools to be vaccinated.
The measure has seen weeks of vocal opposition, with thousands of parents placing calls to representatives and donning red shirts to protest at the state capitol. The bill, which lays out what would be one of the strictest vaccination regimes in the country, would eliminate current exceptions that allow for students to go unvaccinated due to personal beliefs or on religious grounds.
Proponents have been equally resolute, delivering a petition Wednesday with over 30,000 signatures to the Democratic governor. It was unclear whether Governor Jerry Brown intended to sign the bill, which opponents said would intrude on families’ private health decisions.
It is uncertain if Governor Jerry Brown will sign the bill into law. A move to close the personal belief loophole gained steamed after an outbreak of measles that began late last year in Disneyland, the San Diego-area theme park.
“I have been troubled by the silence,” said Carl Krawitt, who started the petition along with his wife. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracked 125 measles cases nationwide from the outbreak, including 110 in California. The disease can cause severe health complications in young children and can in some cases be fatal.
The Krawitts’ son, Rhett, is a seven-year-old leukemia survivor who could not be vaccinated while recovering from chemotherapy. “As a pediatrician, I have personally witnessed children suffering life-long injury and death from vaccine-preventable infection,” Dr Richard Pan, a state senator who coauthored the legislation, said in a statement.
Krawitt said his son’s health is contingent on whether enough of his classmates were vaccinated to reach “herd immunity” – when enough people are immunized to protect the entire community. “The personal belief exemption is now endangering the public and [this bill] will restore vaccination rates and protect all children in school.”
However, Krawitt said his son attends school in chronically under-vaccinated Marin County. But Rebecca Estepp, a San Diego-area mother and director of communications for HealthChoice, a national nonprofit that challenges the bedrock science of vaccinations, called the bill “extraordinarily intrusive”.
“When people talk about parental choice and rights and the right to an education, Rhett’s the child we should be thinking about,” said Democratic senator Richard Pan of Sacramento, who is sponsoring the measure with fellow Democratic senator Ben Allen of Santa Monica. “I don’t need to the state of California getting in between my doctor and I, saying that my children need to be vaccinated,” Estepp told the Guardian. “They keep on saying ‘this is because of Disneyland’, but not one case was transmitted in a classroom setting. This is just an overreaction.”
Pan, a pediatrician, has said California’s overall immunization rate appears sufficient to maintain herd immunity, but suburban pockets throughout the state have vaccination rates that are dangerously low. During debate over the bill this spring, the parents of a seven-year-old leukemia survivor who could not be vaccinated while recovering from chemotherapy testified that doubts about the consistency of vaccinations in public schools left them in fear for their child.
In some Marin County schools, little more than half of students are vaccinated against measles. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that herd immunity for measles is 92%-94%. Carl Krawitt, the cancer survivor’s father, called on governor Brown to sign the bill.
The Associated Press contributed to this report “I have been troubled by the silence,” Krawitt said.
Twelve of the patients in the Disneyland breakout were infants too young to be vaccinated, according to the CDC.