Vaccine Exemption Bill Stalls in Sacramento; Vote Next Week

A bill that would eliminate the vaccine personal belief exemption stalled before the Senate Education Committee Wednesday in Sacramento. Lawmakers were deeply concerned that the bill would bar too many children from school. The bill's co-author, Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), asked the committee to delay a vote until next Wednesday after the committee chairwoman warned him he did not have enough votes to pass.

Pan said he will use the time to address their concerns, possibly adding amendments to the bill.

Under the bill, SB277, California would no longer permit any vaccine exemptions except a medical one, meaning virtually all children would have to be vaccinated in order to attend public or private school. Even home-schoolers who group together would be affected under the current language, one of the committee's complaints.

While several committee members expressed their support for vaccines, they were worried that the bill goes too far. "I'm looking for the compelling state interest in doing something (this) draconian," said state Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley). "If I'm reading the bill correctly, there's nothing you can do if you choose not to vaccinate your child," except home-school and then only with your own children.

Hancock said that she wondered if this bill was the "best way to build community consensus" around increasing vaccination rates.

Committee chair Carol Liu (D-Glendale) pointedly asked Pan, "How do you justify the public purpose of public safety and the right for everyone to have access" to an education.

The bill would make California one of only three states -- along with West Virginia and Mississippi -- without a religious or philosophical exemption to vaccination.

Only a tiny minority of California schoolchildren -- about 2.5 percent of the state's kindergartners this year -- have a personal belief exemption on file. But parents who support the exemption were out in full force at the hearing, testifying in opposition to the bill, just as they had turned out last week before the health committee. The health committee had voted 6-2 to advance the bill. Many parents said they would pull their kids out of school rather than meet a vaccine requirement.

Parents in support of the bill turned out as well, including Marin County father Carl Krawitt, whose 7-year-old son is in remission from leukemia. The chemotherapy the boy received as treatment wiped out previous vaccine protection. He could not commence revaccination until February, when his immune system had recovered sufficiently.

"We believe that this is sound public health policy because it keeps our kids safe," Krawitt testified. "You have a duty to legislate from solid evidence, not from fear, and keep our schools safe."

Risk of Backfire?

But some supporters of vaccinations wonder if the move will backfire. Writing in the New York Times about the California bill, Dartmouth government professor Brendan Nyhan referred to the "blundering approach state legislators there have taken" and asserted that this "direct attack on exemptions can rally the anti-vaccine cause."

Nyhan argued instead in favor of tightening exemption rules, as State of Health has previously described:

• Requiring annual renewal of the personal belief exemption. Right now, parents need only file at kindergarten and seventh grade
• Require notarization to file the personal belief exemption form
• For religious exemptions, require a religious leader within the organization to submit a letter on your behalf

But in a phone call late Wednesday afternoon, Pan, the bill's co-author, stood his ground. "We can't bury our heads and say that nothing is happening in our communities," he said. "We need to have a public debate about what it means to be safe from these deadly diseases."

He cited the 2010 whooping cough epidemic in California with more than 9,000 cases. Ten infants died. Places with higher rates of personal belief exemption were associated with more cases of whooping cough.

The education committee will vote next Wednesday. If approved, it has another committee stop before it would get to the Senate floor. If it passes both those hurdles, it heads over to the Assembly.