As clusters of unvaccinated kids in California grew and so did outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, legislators got ahead of the problem with a series of vaccine laws to get kids vaccinated and protected.
- AB 2109 – signed into law in 2012, and in effect for the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 school years, it required parents to get a signed form from a health care provider if they wanted to get a vaccine exemption
- SB 277 – signed into law in 2015, it eliminated non-medical vaccine exemptions and has been in effect since the 2016-2017 school year
So are all of the kids in California vaccinated now?
How Is California’s New Vaccine Law Working?
Unfortunately, some folks have found a way around the new vaccine laws.
How?
Some California doctors have taken advantage of fearful parents, and instead of doing the work to help parents understand that vaccines are safe with few risks, they are writing unjustified medical exemptions.
And since many of these parents share their fears with their friends, these intentionally unvaccinated kids often attend the same schools and use the same doctors to obtain unwarranted exemptions of their own. That results in the pockets of susceptible children we often talk about.
Some of these doctors have even created an industry out of providing medical exemptions to kids to get them out of getting vaccinated and protected before attending school. It is reported that they are selling fake medical vaccine exemptions for conditions that are not true medical contraindications to getting vaccinated!
Still, many others have gotten vaccinated.
In fact, after years of declines, the vaccination rates for kids entering kindergarten in 2017 were at the highest rate since at least 1998!
“The proportion of students attending kindergarten in 2017-2018 reported to have received all required vaccines is 95.1%, a 0.4 percentage point decrease (difference of unrounded values) from the 2016-2017 school year and a 4.7 percentage point increase over the three years since 2014-2015. The 2017-2018 rate of 95.1% is the second highest reported for the current set of immunization requirements for kindergarten, which began in the 2001-2002 school year.”
2017-2018 Kindergarten Immunization Assessment – Executive Summary California Department of Public Health, Immunization Branch
What about the exodus from public schools that many predicted?
Or the exodus of folks California?
Neither happened.
“About 130,000 more residents left California for other states last year than came here from them, as high costs left many residents without a college degree looking for an exit, according to a Bee review of the latest census estimates.”
More people left California in 2017 than moved here. Who they are and where they went
While some people are leaving, it is typically for economic reasons.
It isn’t because folks have to vaccinate and protect their kids.
So except for not predicting that folks would try to get fake medical exemptions, California’s new vaccine law is working well!
More on the Effectiveness of California’s New Vaccine Law
- VAXOPEDIA – Abuse of Vaccine Exemptions
- VAXOPEDIA – New Vaccine Bills and Laws in 2019
- VAXOPEDIA – How Are Australia’s New Vaccine Laws Working?
- VAXOPEDIA – The Moral Responsibility of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
- VAXOPEDIA – Why Are We Worried About 60,000 Unvaccinated Kids?
- VAXOPEDIA – Why Are We Having Measles Outbreaks If MMR Vaccination Rates Are Not Declining?
- VAXOPEDIA – How to Claim a Vaccine Exemption
- VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
- ACIP – Contraindications and Precautions
- CDC – Who Should NOT Get Vaccinated with these Vaccines?
- California Immunization Exemption Legislation
- Ouch! – Now that didn’t hurt: The Implementation of the Vaccination Bill SB 277 in Orange County
- California SB 277: New evidence that restricting nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine requirements works
- Why You Shouldn’t Shop for Medical Exemptions
- Study Examines Fallout of California Vaccine Exemption Law
- California vaccination rates – record high thanks to SB277
- 2017-2018 Kindergarten Immunization Assessment – Executive Summary California Department of Public Health, Immunization Branch
- Dear Colleague letter regarding guidelines for use of immunization exemptions
- Study – Experiences With Medical Exemptions After a Change in Vaccine Exemption Policy in California
- Anti-vax doctors are granting bogus vaccine exemptions. How to make them think twice.
- Vaccination rate jumps in California after tougher inoculation law
- After a Debacle, How California Became a Role Model on Measles
- Pushback against immunization laws leaves some California schools vulnerable to outbreaks
- There is a Whole Cottage Industry of Doctors Helping Parents Skip Their Kids’ Vaccines
- More people left California in 2017 than moved here. Who they are and where they went
- Exemption Abuse – Too many kindergarteners aren’t getting vaccinated.
- The problem of nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates