A state Assembly Health committee approved an embattled vaccine exemption bill Thursday following a heated, five-hour hearing dominated by testimony from emotional parents opposed to mandatory shots and worried about not being able to get exemptions for their children.
In the end, the committee voted nine to twoin favor of Senate Bill 276, which aims to bring medical vaccine exemptions under oversight of the state public health department.
“You’re going to kill more children!” one audience member shouted after the last vote was cast.
Many experts, including bill co-sponsor Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, a medical doctor, argue that a handful of doctors began writing illegitimate medical exemptions in the wake of a 2015 bill banning exemptions based on personal beliefs.
A Bay Area News Group investigation into vaccine medical exemptions this week found five doctors wrote over half of the 180 forms filed in eight school districts, all with ties to groups opposing SB 276.
The exemption practices of three doctors in the records have already come under investigation by California authorities, and many are on lists of “vaccine-flexible” pediatricians circulated online by anti-vaccine parents. Three exemptions were signed by a doctor in New Jersey, and a fourth by one in Florida.
“The result of these fake medical exemptions was a quadrupling of the percentage of medical exemptions in the state and the decline in the state vaccination rate below 95% this current school year,” Pan said during his opening statement at the hearing. “California cannot allow a handful of unscrupulous physicians to put our children in danger.”
Hundreds of opponents stood in a blocks-long line waiting to voice their opposition. Others sat in the audience, where some hissed, muttered, and waved hands covered in yellow duct tape on which they’d written “LIES!”
“Excuse me, no hissing,” said Assembly Member Jim Wood, chair of the committee, in an effort to dampen the audience reaction to Pan’s remarks and answers to the committee members’ questions. “No clapping. No outbursts of any kind. Please.”
It wasn’t the last time the chair had to enforce decorum: Several public comments were delivered by young children sent up to the microphone by parents, despite the chair’s repeated requests that only adults speak.
Medical experts generally agree at least 95% of children in a given school must be vaccinated to protect so-called herd immunity for children for whom vaccines pose a genuine health risk, including kids on chemotherapy and immunosuppressants. There have been 53 reported cases of Measles in California so far this year, and more than 1,100 across the country.
Under the bill, every exemption would be entered into a database, allowing public health officials to flag signs of bad behavior. Doctors who aren’t a child’s primary care physician, or haven’t been seeing the child for a year, must notify the child’s primary doctor about the exemption.
Originally, the proposed legislation called for a state public health department review of every exemption. After Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed concern about the state getting between doctors and patients, the bill was revised to limit state review to schools with dangerously low vaccination rates and doctors who sign more than five exemptions in a year.
Notorious anti-vaccine doctor Robert Sears of Orange County answered legislator’ questions on behalf of the opposition. The Medical Board of California placed his license on probation last year because he exempted a 2-year-old child without taking a medical history.
One woman who was invited to speak by Sears, said her child had suffered a severe reaction to vaccines, and worried about whether there could be a hereditary reaction to vaccines and what would happen if she had another child who was given vaccines.
“Not one medical expert could pinpoint what component of which vaccine he received caused the reaction,” the woman said of her child’s reaction to the shots. “I found out it could have been a reaction to the fetal cells that are in vaccines, it could have been the other toxins like formaldehyde.”
Pan clarified that vaccines do not contain fetal cells and have less formaldehyde than an apple.
Assemblymember Chad Mayes, who abstained from voting on the bill, asked both Sears and Pan how the state could best target doctors who sell exemptions to parents with healthy kids, without penalizing the ones signing legitimate forms.
“I feel like I’m doing this in a very scrupulous way. I do not advertise for it, I do not advertise on social media, I don’t even have a website,” Sears said. Under SB 276, he said, the state could “review every single one of my exemptions that I’ve done and disqualify each and every one of them, and kick those kids out of school.”
For years, Sears maintained an online list of doctors willing to write exemptions. He has since deleted the list, but it is still circulated widely on anti-vaccine blogs.
“The one person the medical board has actually put on probation for inappropriate medical exemptions is Dr. Sears himself,” Pan responded.
“By the way, Dr. Sears, who practices down in Southern California, wrote one of the exemptions after he got his probation, up in Northern California,” Pan said, referring to this paper’s investigation.
As the hearing came to an end, a few tired committee members thanked the audience for their participation,
“This is part of what democracy is about, that we sit here and we listen and we try to find the best solution,” said Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Sacramento. “When we run for office, it’s all about safety, whether it’s water, lights, streets or health…I will be supporting your bill today.”
