Good Idea? Calif. Legislators Move to Make Vaccines Mandatory Without Exemption

State and federal legislators are rethinking a parent’s right to choose not to vaccinate their children thanks to the national measles outbreak epicentered in California.

As California’s measles toll reaches a 15-year high of 99, two state senators, including Sen. Ben Allen, D-Redondo Beach, said they plan to introduce legislation that would eliminate the ability of parents to receive a “personal belief” exemption from immunizing their children.

“The high number of unvaccinated students is jeopardizing public health not only in schools but in the broader community,” Allen said. “We need to take steps to keep our schools safe and our students healthy.”

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Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, who is also a pediatrician, said the idea of people not immunizing their children has concerned him “for a long time.”

“I’ve personally witnessed the suffering caused by these preventable diseases and I am very grateful to the many parents that are now speaking up and letting us know that our current laws don’t protect their kids,” Pan said.

Pan authored a law in 2012 requiring parents to speak to a healthcare practitioner before obtaining a vaccination exemption. According to Pan, the number of parents seeking exemptions dropped by 20 percent when the law took effect.

The effort to eliminate the exemption appeared to gain early support from Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both D-Calif., who sent a letter to California Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley asking that the state reconsider its policy on exemptions.

“While a small number of children cannot be vaccinated due to an underlying medical condition, we believe there should be no such thing as a philosophical or personal belief exemption, since everyone uses public spaces,” according to the letter. “As we have learned in the past month, parents who refuse to vaccinate their children not only put their own family at risk, but they also endanger other families who choose to vaccinate.”

State Sen. Patricia Bates, R-San Juan Capistrano, favors vaccinations and has led efforts to get more children vaccinated, spokesman Ron Ongtoaboc said. The senator, however, wants to study the proposed legislation further before committing any support.

“The senator does support vaccinations. In fact, in the supervisorial district that she represented (in south Orange County) had one of the highest rates in the state” of unvaccinated children, Ongtoaboc said. “So she partnered with health officials to boost vaccinations.”

The outbreak has spread through many California counties, and as of Feb. 4, has been reported in:

• ALAMEDA: 6
• LOS ANGELES: 17
• City of Long Beach*: 2
• City of Pasadena*: 3
• MARIN: 2
• ORANGE: 31
• RIVERSIDE: 5
• SAN BERNARDINO: 7
• SAN DIEGO: 13
• SAN MATEO: 3
• SANTA CLARA: 2
• SOLANO: 1
• VENTURA: 7
  * City health jurisdictions not included in county total

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK IN THE COMMENTS: Should parents have the right to choose whether to vaccinate their children, or should vaccines be entirely mandatory for the sake of public health?

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– City News Service contributed to this report. (Image via Shutterstock)

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