Homeless in Arizona

Yea, I know vaccines work and prevent diseases. I'm not a Luddite!!!!

But the government isn't your mommy and daddy and shouldn't tell you how to run your life.

If you are too dumb to get a vaccine, or if you think a vaccine will cause more harm then good, or you can't afford a vaccine, that should be your choice. Not some government nannies choice.

Also I am sure this violates many people 1st Amendment religious freedom rights. If your religion considers vaccines to be the tool of the devil then you should be free not to get them.

We are told that government is a "public servant" that works for us. If that's true government shouldn't be issuing mandates telling us what we are required to do.

Source

California Governor Jerry Brown Signs Mandatory Vaccine Law

1:38 PM ET

Law abolishes exemptions for personal beliefs

California Governor Jerry Brown signed a mandatory school vaccination bill into law Tuesday, abolishing the “personal belief” exemption that many parents use as a loophole to avoid vaccinating their children.

Now, under California law, which is among the strictest in the country, children would not be able to enroll in public school unless they have been vaccinated against diseases like measles and whooping cough. The law includes an exemption for children who have a medical reason to remain unvaccinated (like an immune system disorder) and can prove it with a doctor’s note. Parents who decline to vaccinate their children for personal or religious reasons will have to home-school them or send them to a public independent study program off school grounds.

Students who are unvaccinated because of “personal belief” who are already in public elementary school can stay until they’re in 7th grade, and then the parents will either have to vaccinate them or home-school them. Daycare students can stay until kindergarten, when they have to be either vaccinated or home-schooled. In the fall of 2014, almost 3% of California kindergartners were unvaccinated because of personal belief. Preschools in the most affluent areas are also the least likely to vaccinate, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The bill was proposed after a measles outbreak at Disneyland infected more 150 people, and many needed to be hospitalized. Supporters of the law argue that it is based on medical consensus that vaccinations improve public health. Opponents—who have been picketing outside the California legislature—argue that it’s an attack on personal freedom.

Source

California governor signs strict law requiring vaccinations for most kids

Liz Szabo, USA TODAY 5:29 p.m. EDT June 30, 2015

The governor of California – ground zero for the Disneyland measles outbreak that infected 117 people – today signed legislation giving California one of the toughest school vaccine laws in the country.

California children will no longer be able to skip the shots normally required to attend school because of their parents' religious or personal objections. Unvaccinated children will still be able to attend school if there is a medical reason why they're not able to be immunized, such as treatment for cancer.

"The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases," said Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, in a statement. "While it's true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community."

While all 50 states require school children to be vaccinated, 48 currently allow exemptions for families with religious objections and 20 exempt children based on parents' personal beliefs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Twelve states this year considered legislation addressing vaccine exemptions. In May, Vermont became the first state to repeal its personal belief exemption, although the law still permits exemptions for religious reasons.

A growing number of parents have opted to delay or skip vaccines because of concerns over safety. Multiple studies have found vaccines to be safe, with no link to autism or other chronic conditions. Myths about vaccines continue to circulate online, however, and are promoted by a number of celebrities.

Vaccines: Facts vs. myths

Brown noted that California children can still receive an exemption to the vaccine requirement if a physician concludes there are "circumstances, including but not limited to, family medical history, for which the physician does not recommend immunization."

Critics of vaccination had campaigned vigorously against the law, arguing that it infringed on their freedom of choice. Some have vowed to challenge the law in court. The Supreme Court has upheld state vaccine laws twice.

Pediatrician Robert Sears, known for publishing an alternative vaccine schedule that delays a number of shots, predicts that many anti-vaccine parents will take their children out of school.

"When the government tries to force something on families, especially children, parents don't line their kids up to comply. They run the other way," said Sears of Capistrano Beach, Calif., who campaigned against the law. "Forcing parents to choose between vaccines and school is unnecessary and unfair. I predict that more families will shift into homeschooling and co-op home-based educational programs over this, rather than feel coerced into doing something they don't feel is right for their child. Even more families will lose trust in the government and the medical system."

Santa Monica pediatrician Jay Gordon, a well-known author with concerns about vaccine safety, said some families will try to get medical exemptions.

"Many parents will be scared and angry because they have medical concerns and their doctors might not agree that the medical exemption is warranted," Gordon said. "Medical exemptions can be very legitimately granted to a large number of people with family medical histories of problems with vaccines, other medicines or with autoimmune problems. But one has to know that and have an understanding doctor."

Studies show that strict school vaccination laws are associated with higher vaccination rates. Communities need to vaccinate at least 92% of children against measles to prevent outbreaks, said Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

In Colorado, which allows children to skip vaccines for religious or philosophical reasons, only 82% children have received both recommended doses of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. That's the lowest rate in the USA. In Mississippi, which grants vaccine exemptions only for medical reasons, 99.7% of children have gotten both doses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Research shows that children with vaccine exemptions are 35 times more likely than others to contract measles.

Many parts of the country now have large pockets of underimmunized children, which have allowed vaccine-preventable diseases to make a come back.

Nearly one in seven public and private schools have measles vaccination rates below 90% — a rate considered inadequate to provide immunity, according to a USA TODAY analysis of immunization data in 13 states.

Hundreds of thousands of students attend schools where vaccination rates have dropped precipitously low, sometimes under 50%, according to the USA TODAY analysis, published in February.

Others hail the new law, sponsored by Democratic Sens. Richard Pan of Sacramento, a pediatrician, and Ben Allen of Santa Monica.

Many studies show that school vaccine laws reduce the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, said William Schaffner, a professor at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville.

Schaffner says school vaccine laws are a vital tool for protecting the most vulnerable children, such as those with immune deficiencies or who are undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.

Measles killed 500 people a year in the days before vaccines. An outbreak from 1989 to 1991 sickened more than 55,000 people and killed 166, according to the CDC.

"It is a great day for California's children," said Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Finally, someone stood up for California's children."

Source

Jerry Brown signs California vaccine bill

By David Siders, Alexei Koseff and Jeremy B. White

dsiders@sacbee.com

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed one of the strictest schoolchild vaccination laws in the country, eliminating personal and religious belief exemptions for vaccines.

The governor’s signature came one day after the state Senate moved the bill to his desk, following months of protests and fierce debate at the Capitol.

“The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases,” Brown said in a signing statement. “While it’s true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community.”

The bill will make California the third state in the nation to require vaccines without religious and personal belief exemptions.

Opponents of the measure said it unfairly restricts parent choice. They immediately vowed to challenge the law in court and potentially through a referendum at the ballot box, arguing it will deprive unvaccinated children of their constitutional right to an education.

“We need to wait until someone actually gets thrown out of school until we can challenge it,” which would not occur until after the bill takes effect in 2016, said Christina Hildebrand, founder of the group A Voice For Choice. “But we will likely have a referendum on it.”

Proponents of the legislation, spurred by a measles outbreak at Disneyland, said unvaccinated children put kids who are too young or sick to be vaccinated at risk.

“Parents do not need to worry, do not want to worry, about taking their children to the school, or to stores, to theme parks,” said bill author Richard Pan, a Democratic state senator from Sacramento.

Of the possibility of a legal challenge, he said, “The courts have been very clear that you don’t have a right to spread a communicable disease, that there’s a public interest in keeping our communities safe from disease.”

The bill allows any schoolchild with an exemption on file to remain unvaccinated until he or she starts kindergarten or, if already in elementary school, seventh grade.

Thousands of California parents protested the measure, Senate Bill 277, in recent months, including at a vigil outside the Capitol this week.

When she heard at the vigil that Brown had signed the bill, Kimberly McCauley of Sacramento sat down on the steps and cried.

McCauley carried pictures of her two-year-old daughter, Ella, whom she said she stopped vaccinating after Ella had adverse reactions to three immunizations, and a letter from her pediatrician denying Ella a medical exemption.

“My daughter is the sweetest little girl, and every day she asks when she gets to go to school,” McCauley said, choking back more tears. “She doesn't deserve to be discriminated against.”

McCauley said she was angry with Pan for “facilitating hate” against those who choose not to vaccinate their children, and with Brown for refusing to meet with opponents to hear their concerns.

“He signed this quick and dirty because he wants us to go away. We're not going away,” she said. “We're going to sue. I personally will take this all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Despite passionate opposition to the bill, a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California this month found support for mandatory vaccines from 67 percent of California adults and 65 percent of public school parents.

Brown’s signature was expected. His office said earlier this year that Brown considered vaccinations “profoundly important,” and a senior adviser, though saying she was speaking on her own behalf, testified in favor of the measure.

Three years ago, however, in a relatively mild precursor to this year’s school vaccination bill, Brown made a special exemption for religious beliefs when he signed legislation requiring parents to consult a health professional before declining vaccinations for their schoolchildren.

In his signing statement Tuesday, the Democratic governor noted that the bill exempts children whose family medical histories lead a physician to recommend against immunization. But unlike in 2012, the former Jesuit seminarian said nothing about religion.

David Siders: 916-321-1215, @davidsiders