Officials to parents: Get your kids vaccinated
Reminders going out to make sure children are kept up with immunizations, as per state law
August — ouch — is National Immunization Awareness Month and the start of school for many, timely reminders why local and state public health officials are urging parents to make sure their children are up to speed with their vaccines, preventing diseases like measles and whooping cough that can easily spread in childcare and school settings.
Actually, it’s not just a reminder, it’s the law — and one that got even tougher in California starting last summer when parents no longer were allowed to opt out of immunizations for their children, save for legitimate medical exemptions. Students attending a home-based private school or an independent study program with no classroom-based instruction also are exempted from the law.
Experts say the new law, Senate Bill 277, is already making an impact. While the state has yet to release its report on the numbers of immunizations of children in daycare and nursery schools, public health officials point to the Golden State’s rising 2016-17 immunization numbers for both
kindergarten and 7th grade students as evidence.
In April, figures from the California Department of Public Health showed 95.6 percent of kindergartners — the highest ever — had received all their vaccinations, an increase of nearly 3 percentage points from the previous school year.
Similarly just last month, the department said, 98.4 percent of 7th graders were vaccinated, compared to 97.8 percent in 2015-16.
“The numbers are good news and provide additional proof that SB 277 is restoring community immunity to keep our kids safe and healthy as intended,’’ said Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, a pediatrician and co-author with Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, of the bill which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on June 30, 2015.
As this year’s measles outbreak in Minnesota showed, Pan said, California needs to “remain vigilant to protect our children and communities from those who put us at risk of preventable diseases.”
Yet tens of thousands of Californians, like Maureen Clancy, still consider SB 277 to be a violation of their parental rights.
“It’s medical tyranny,’’ said the 60-year-old Sonoma headhunter, adding that she believes the shots contributed to one relative’s autoimmune disease and another’s learning disabilities.
“There is no one-sizefits-all medicine, including vaccines. I would leave California before vaccinating somebody in my family.’’
Clancy is among those holding out hope that SB 277 will be overturned through any of the lawsuits filed against the state, including one by A Voice For Choice, which contends the law creates an “unconstitutional condition” that violates a person’s rights to education, privacy and bodily autonomy.
“Our case is based on cherished principles,” Christina Hildebrand, the Palo Alto-based founder of A Voice For Choice, said in December when the suit was filed. “The state cannot force you to give up one fundamental right if you wish to exercise another.”
Dorit Reiss, a professor and vaccine law expert at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, who has studied each suit that pops up, believes that the plaintiffs in this case are unlikely to prevail, pointing to precedent that has consistently come down on the side of public health.
“The adoption of “unconstitutional condition” is nowhere as clear as they are trying to make it,” said Reiss of the case being heard in Placer County, where a key ruling is expected Tuesday.
The law, which sparked one of the most contentious debates in the state Capitol in years, makes California one of only three states — along with Mississippi and West Virginia — that permit only medical exemptions as legitimate reasons to sidestep vaccinations.
Yet while SB 277 ended personal belief exemptions — except those grandfathered in before Jan. 1, 2016 — there are concerns that the numbers of permanent medical exemptions for both kindergartners and 7th graders are increasing.
Data show the figures rose from 0.2 percent to 0.5 percent in 2016-17 for kindergartners, and from 0.1 percent to 0.4 percent for 7th graders.
Some advocates of the law say they are aware of parents flocking to doctors who are skirting SB 277, agreeing to sign a permanent medical exemption — often for hundreds of dollars — for a child when there may be no valid reason to do so.
“That’s a concern to us if their physician is exempting the child for reasons that are not within the (medical) guidelines, outside the standard of care,’’ said Catherine Martin, executive director of the California Immunization Coalition, a public/private partnership dedicated to increasing and maintaining full immunization protection for all Californians.
“We feel you just can’t make up a reason,’’ she said.
Some county public health departments had asked schools and child care centers to submit all medical exemptions to be analyzed to determine if the exemption met the law’s criteria.
Yet Pan and others say that the small minority of parents and doctors subverting the law is not currently undermining the overall success of SB277. And they applaud the work being done by schools and public health officials to effect change.
“It’s still a work in progress,’’ Reiss said, “but it’s doing exactly what it should do and getting us into a better place.”
For more information about immunizations required for school entry in California, go to www. shotsforschool.org.