05 February 2015

New vaccine requirements in California



Slate has an article by Beth Ethier about changing requirements in California:
At a recent press conference, California state Senator Richard Pan said he will propose a bill tightening vaccination requirements for public and private school students throughout the state, a move backed at least in part by both of California's Senators. Both chambers of California's legislature are controlled by Democrats, and Governor Jerry Brown's office indicated such a bill will be "closely considered" if it reaches his desk.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the proposed legislation would leave only medical exemptions from vaccination requirements intact, dramatically altering a system that currently allows more than thirteen thousand children to attend class without proof of vaccination every year. The bill's rollout came as health officials announced that a hundred cases of measles had been diagnosed in the state since an outbreak tied to Disneyland started in December of 2014. Pan's suggested vaccination standards would eliminate personal- and religious-belief exemptions, and require every school to publicly disclose the vaccination rates of its student body. The conservative Pacific Justice Institute has already objected, calling the proposal "a pretty sweeping approach to what really is a very limited problem that could be addressed in other ways", prompted by "hysteria" over the latest outbreak.
However, Santa Monica is a pocket of anti-vaccine sentiment (others are documented in the Washington Post map, above) notorious enough that The Wall Street Journal called Senator Rand Paul an ally of the "Santa Monica left" for his recent remarks about vaccines and mental disorders. Santa Monica state Senator Ben Allen, though, is expected to be a co-sponsor of the vaccination bill.
Rico says anyone who refuses to have his kid vaccinated better be prepared to home-school them (though it's the same crowd)...

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