A California bill that abolishes the "personal belief exemption" for vaccinations is one step closer to becoming a law. The bill, SB 277, passed 25-10 in the California Senate on Thursday. Its next stop is clearing the Assembly before being signed into law, and if it is, it will make it that much harder for parents to avoid vaccinating their children; good news for the fight against infectious disease.
The measure was led by Democratic Senators Richard Pan and Ben Allen, who championed the bill following December's measles outbreak that originated at Disneyland and eventually sickened 136 Californians before being squelched.
"Vaccines are necessary to protect us. That protection has been eroding," Pan says. "The science is clear: Vaccines are safe and efficacious."
Currently children are required to be vaccinated before entering kindergarten. But exemptions exist, which are critical for children with medical conditions that prohibit immunizations, such as those with immune system disorders, allergies to vaccines, or a history of adverse reactions.
But the exemption curtailed by the new law concerns personal and religious objections to vaccines. Currently, only Mississippi and West Virginia do not allow personal or religious exemptions. California hopes to be added to the list.
Medical exemptions aside, the decision to vaccinate your child should be an easy one, according to most health experts. Vaccines undergo extensive clinical testing before they are released to the public and are continually monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
And vaccines don't only protect the recipient; they protect the entire population. A vaccination rate above 90% affords "herd immunity" for the general population, making it extremely difficult for infectious disease to take hold, which is critical for protecting those who cannot be immunized.
Lawmakers in California were forced to make concessions on their bill, primarily grandfathering in public and private school students whose parents have already utilized the personal belief exemptions. This may permit thousands of children to enter the school system without being immunized.
For now, Californians wait on Gov. Jerry Brown's next move.
"I would be surprised if he didn't sign it, because of the public health issues involved," said Jack Pitney, a politics and government professor at Claremont McKenna College in an interview. "I think the governor, on one hand, is sensitive to parental rights, but also sees public health as a major responsibility of his."
"The anti-vaccine folks are going to make a very hard push, but passage in the Senate is a good sign it will become law," Pitney says. "Sen. Pan made changes that made it more acceptable to some of the critics and that should greatly improve its changes in the Assembly."
