California senate approves bill to make vaccinations mandatory

Measure which would exclude most opt-outs for children including on religious grounds will
now be debated in state assembly later this summer
Joni Martin, a mother from Santa Cruz who opposes the bill, spoke with media after the vote.
Photograph: Anita Chabria/Guardian
Anita Chabria in Sacramento
Thursday 14 May 2015 23.57 BST Last modified on Friday 15 May 201500.00 BST

A controversial bill that would make common vaccinations mandatory for California school
children and curtail most ways to opt kids out of the shots sailed past a full vote of the state
senate on Thursday.
One child who is not immunized is not a big deal, said Senator Ben Allen, a co-author of the
bill, before the vote. This is about how each of our personal choices impacts others.
The bill passed 25 to 10. It needed 21 votes to advance to the state assembly, where it will now
be debated later in the summer.
Before the vote, three senators who oppose the measure suggested amendments that were quickly
quashed by their colleagues.
The most hotly contested question was whether the measure should contain an exemption for
religious beliefs, as similar laws in 48 other states do. If passed, California would join
Mississippi and West Virginia as the only states that do not allow religious exemptions.
Senator Joel Anderson, a Catholic who has been the most vocal legislator on the issue of
religious exemption, proposed an amendment that would allow an opt-out if it was legally
notarized and stated that the vaccinations were against a persons faith on penalty of perjury.
He focused on his objection that certain vaccines are cultured using a medium that originally
contained aborted fetal cells. These FDA-approved cell lines were obtained more than 50 years
ago and have been propagated since, but now vaccines cultured in them contain only the most
minute traces of the founding DNA. The final vaccines contain no human tissue.
Anderson said he objects to forcing parents opposed to abortion to use those vaccines. Doing so
without first informing parents of their contents means, you have a right to steal my soul

without my knowledge, he said. We are taking in the dark of night without parents or
guardians knowledge.
Senator Ben Allen countered that he had asked numerous religious leaders, including those in the
Catholic church, about their position on vaccines and had not found any mainstream religions
that opposed vaccinations. He further pointed out that the Vatican has previously publicly
supported vaccinations.
Later, Allen added, The freedom of religion is not limitless. But said that considering a
religious amendment was still a possibility as the bill winds its way through the maze of
assembly committees.
If its truly a good-faith attempt to strengthen the bill, of course Im going to look at it, he said.
Senator Ben Allen, right, and Senator Richard Pan centre, co-authors of the vaccination bill,
celebrated with supporters after the bill successfully passed the full senate. Photograph: Anita
Chabria/Guardian
And it remains possible that Californias Governor Jerry Brown could ultimately decide the
religious issue. Brown has indicated that he supports the current bill, according to Allen. But in a
2012 vaccine bill, AB 2109, Brown added a religious exemption in as a condition of his signing.
Other senators in opposition to SB 277 voiced concern that the bill would drive school kids out
of public schools, impacting their state right to a public education, or that the proposal unfairly
impacted parents rights.
Senator Ted Gaines spoke about an adverse reaction his then-infant daughter had to a vaccine,
including seizures, and a subsequent medical diagnoses that advised holding off on further
vaccinations for 10 years. While his family ultimately chose to move forward with shots after
that waiting period, he voiced concern for taking those medical decisions away from families.
To me this comes down to a parental rights issue, he said.
Citizens opposing the bill, who have flooded capitol hallways and hearing rooms each time it is
debated, were again out at full force. Wearing red to symbolize children they say have been
harmed by vaccinations, members of the California Coalition for Health Choice filled much of
the senate gallery and voiced disappointment after the vote.

Of course our next step is lots and lots of face time with assembly members, said Joni Martin,
a member of the California Coalition for Health Choice, which opposes the bill. I am hoping the
assembly members will show better sense than the senate members who have expressed their
support have so far.
If Senate Bill 277 makes it through the assembly and is signed by the governor, it will require
children in both public and private school to be vaccinated against 10 childhood illnesses
including measles and whooping cough as a condition of on-campus attendance. Any new
vaccinations added to the list in coming years would be eligible for personal belief waivers, and
kids already past the kindergarten checkpoint would not be forced to obtain missing vaccinations
until the next seventh-grade checkpoint.
The bill has been amended numerous times as it cleared committees on its way to a full senate
vote. Most recently, it was quietly changed last week to remove a provision that would have
required schools to periodically report their vaccination rates to parents.
Because that provision would have incurred a cost to the state, it would have pushed the bill into
the appropriations committee. Bill authors Dr Richard Pan and Allen removed that reporting
requirement, allowing the bill to bypass that final committee and move straight to the senate
floor.
Critics say that move was unfair.
This is yet again an example of the many ways that this bill is not making sense, said Mitchell.
What doesnt make sense is that there are costs that are going to be involved in implementing
this bill for sure. She pointed to the need to educate parents on the new law and track
vaccination changes in the future.
The bill will now repeat the committee process in the assembly. If it is amended in that house, it
must return to the senate. But if it passes, it goes to the governors desk to be signed into law.
This effort is not over, said Allen. But I do feel confident that ultimately science and good
reason will wind its way into the minds of my colleagues in the assembly.