The California Assembly Appropriations Committee votes Friday on SB276. Today anti-vaccine folks in Californians who oppose this bill gathered at the state capitol encouraging legislators to continue to allow doctors to write fake medical exemptions.

In addition to the anti-vaccine propaganda signs that we are getting used to seeing, folks got to hear from the usual suspects.

V is for Vaccine Rally

Surprisingly, Robert F Kennedy, Jr started things off.

Why is that a surprise?

Well, he’s not from California…

He does do a good job of pushing anti-vaccine misinformation.

And it’s all stuff we have heard before.

• The Verstraeten Study
• the garbage can and the CDC Whistleblower
• Poul Thorsen

But he added some new stuff that was suprising.

“They are saying that… any child who is unvaccinated has ever passed measles to another child in a school since 1963. No evidence.”

Robert Kennedy, JR

What?

Although the first measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, it took some time before measles was brought under control and the endemic spread finally eliminated in the United States (2000).

No evidence indeed!

He goes on about the MMR being a failed vaccine and that no one should be worried about the unvaccinated if they are vaccinated and protected.

Kennedy even claimed that he read a protocol from Johns Hopkins and not only does it not say anything about immunocompromised people staying away from the unvaccinated, but he says it warns about shedding from the recently vaccinated!

“The increased risk of disease in the pediatric population, in part because of increasing rates of vaccine refusal and in some circumstances more rapid loss of immunity, increases potential exposure of immunodeficient children. The immunosuppressed subject is particularly at risk in crowded living conditions because of the spread of these diseases by aerosol droplets or through the oral-fecal route.”

Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation. Recommendations for live viral and bacterial vaccines in immunodeficient patients and their close contacts

I don’t know what protocol from Johns Hopkins he might have read, but maybe he should have read the Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation. Recommendations for live viral and bacterial vaccines in immunodeficient patients and their close contacts. It clearly warns about the risks of being around someone who is unvaccinated.

Next up was Joshua Coleman.

“These are all undisputed facts. Everyone should know these things.”

Joshua Coleman

Coleman is talking about the “facts” on his anti-vaccine propaganda signs.

• 4 Billion Paid by Us Government for Vaccine Injuries and Deaths – yes, $4,060,857,713.42 has been paid by the Vaccine Court for 6,355 compensated claims for vaccine injuries since 1989, during which time billions of doses of vaccines have been given
• Vaccine Makes Are Exempt From Liability – this is not true
• Vaccines Can Cause Injury and Death – although possible, it is extremely rare for vaccines to cause serious, life-threatening injuries
• Vaccines Are Not Placebo Safety Tested. – except for all of those times when they are, including saline placebos…
• Childhood Vaccines 24 in 1988 72 in 2019 – inflating the vaccine dose count is simply a propaganda technique
• Vaccines Are Made With Aborted Fetal Cells – a cell line whose descendant cells has been copied over and over for over 50 years and are removed before the final vaccine is produced.
• US Law Classifies Vaccines As Unavoidably Unsafe – but that legal term doesn’t in any way mean that vaccines are dangerous or extra risky!
• Impossible to Eradicate Measles With Live Virus Vaccine – this is mischaracterizing something that Gregory Poland said about the difficulty of eradicating measles
• Live Virus Vaccines Shed and Spread – while some live vaccines can shed, shedding is not the problem that these folks make it out to be, often going so far as describing a shedding season among other things

He basically hit every anti-vaccine talking point that there is…

We also heard about hot lots and Vaccine Court compensation claims.

“Cesar Chavez did this. We are the new Cesar Chavez generation.”

Latinos for Medical Freedom

Cesar Chavez did not work to put kids at risk for life-threatening vaccine preventable diseases!

Who did the V is for Vaccine Rally end with?

Del Bigtree.

Is he anti-vaccine?

He says that he is against forced vaccination, which makes you wonder why he is there, as there is no forced vaccination in the United States.

He also says that he has debunked the idea of herd immunity!

“Gavin Newsom if you can hear me, please, please ask yourself, what is the need for this law?”

Del Bigtree

What’s the need for SB276?

How about all of the abuse of medical exemptions that has led to clusters of unvaccinated kids in California schools?

To be very clear – SB276 doesn’t eliminate medical exemptions.

It stops doctors from writing inappropriate medical exemptions.

“My concern with this bill, is that it’s going to take every exemption I’ve ever done under those guidelines, which are not restricted to CDC contraindications – under those old guidelines, they can now review every single one of my exemptions I’ve done and disqualify each and every one of them and kick those kids out of school. They are sort of retroactively changing the guidelines – so all of the exemptions that I’ve ever done, and other physicians have ever done, and to me that’s a very very concerning precedence for a government to go back like that and negate years of medical care that’s been done legally and properly under the guidelines of 277.”

Bob Sears SB 276 Assembly Health Committee Testimony

SB276 is needed because too many doctors took advantage of SB277.

And because too many parents are scared to vaccinate their kids because they listen to folks like Del talk about mercury in vaccines, VAERS, 400 deaths a year from vaccines, vaccinated vs unvaccinated studies, placebo studies, infant mortality rates, and the rise in childhood illness because our kids get 72 vaccines.

“What else needs to be said?”

Del Bigtree

It should be clear what else needs to be said…

Stop listening to these folks and their misinformation.

Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and they are obviously necessary.

More on the V is for Vaccine Rally

• visforvaccines.com
• Ethics and Vaccines
• The Moral Responsibility of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
• Bob Sears Doubles Down Against California Vaccine Laws
• Bob Sears Ignores Death Threats Against Dr. Pan
• Abuse of Vaccine Exemptions
• About Those Anti-Vaccine Signs Some Folks Are Making
• Who is the Controlled Opposition in the Anti-Vax Movement?
• More Questions to Help You Become a Vaccine Skeptic
• 50 Ways to Get Educated About Vaccines
• Correcting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine ‘facts’
• Report – Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation. Recommendations for live viral and bacterial vaccines in immunodeficient patients and their close contacts
• Vaccination informed consent – more anti-vaccine rhetoric from ICAN
• Antivaxxers invade San Diego Comic-Con
• Rob Schneider, anti-vaccine actor, leaves ‘disturbing message’ for lawmaker
• Why is the Church of Scientology helping antivaxers in a last ditch attempt to block passage of SB 276?
• US anti-vaccination leaders incite more threats against Dr Paul Offit
• The Story of Cesar Chavez