CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR SIGNS NEW VACCINE LAW, NOBODY IS HAPPY

by Bob Walsh

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the new vaccination laws as soon as it hit his desk two days ago. SB276, along with its accompanying bill SB714, significantly tighten up the rules on vaccination requirements for both public and private schools.

The old laws allowed a very low standard for a medical doctor to issue an exemption letter. Many parents are still obsessed with the notion that childhood vaccinations are giving their children autism and other problems. This belief is mostly pushed by a study of a couple of dozen subjects in Great Britain many years ago that has since even been discredited by its author. Under the old rules doctors were writing exemptions based on verbal input from the parents, often without examining the patient or doing a history. Many doctors did a good business in issuing these exemption letters. At one time (prior to 2015) parents only had to declare a personal or religious objection to the vaccinations, no medical claim was needed. It got to the point where the number of unvaccinated children was perilously high in some school districts, to the point where it was a public health concern. The "herd immunity" figure is typically quoted at about 95-97%.

The new law invalidates some previously issued medical exemptions and requires others to be reviewed sooner than they would normally have been. If a doctor writes more than a very few exemptions (I believe the current number is five) the State Department of Health will start looking very closely at those exemptions. The Dr. now MUST actually examine the child, must take a history and must specify the medical situation that makes the vaccine dangerous to the patient.

Under the new law medical exemptions would be needed when a child enters school, when they hit the 7th grade, or when they change schools. Temporary exemptions are now good for only one year.

The U S is currently undergoing the worst outbreak of measles in more than 20 years with over 1,200 cases diagnosed across the country. Measles is highly contagious and does kill people.

The anti-vaxxer psychos are attempting to assert a claim that the government does not have any right to interfere with their medical relationships with their health care providers. The normal, sensible people point out that there are a small number of people who have a completely real and legitimate medical reason to not get vaccinations, and that by allowing frivilous unnecessary exemptions the whole population is being put at risk by increasing the number of unvaccinated people overall, to the point where the herd immunity is lost.