Bill passed in California to make Vaccinations mandatory

[AMT]

I wonder what's in the air this week to make all these good laws come popping out.

California lawmakers on Thursday approved one of the toughest mandatory vaccination requirements in the nation, moving to end exemptions from state immunization laws based on religious or other personal beliefs.

The measure, among the most controversial taken up by the Legislature this year, would require more children who enter day care and school to be vaccinated against diseases including measles and whooping cough.

Those with medical conditions such as allergies and immune-system deficiencies, confirmed by a physician, would be excused from immunization. And parents could still decline to vaccinate children who attend private home-based schools or public independent studies off campus.

Reporter sprayed with unknown chemical at anti-vaccination protest
Reporter sprayed with unknown chemical at anti-vaccination protest
It is unclear whether Gov. Jerry Brown will sign the measure, which grew out of concern about low vaccination rates in some communities and an outbreak of measles at Disneyland that ultimately infected more than 150 people.

“The governor believes that vaccinations are profoundly important and a major public health benefit, and any bill that reaches his desk will be closely considered,” Evan Westrup, the governor's spokesman, said Thursday.

If the bill becomes law, California will be the 32nd state to deny exemptions grounded in personal or moral beliefs, but only the third to bar exceptions based on religious convictions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Medical experts, including Dr. Luther Cobb, president of the California Medical Assn., hailed Thursday's vote by the state Assembly as key to keeping deadly but preventable diseases in check.

“We've seen with this recent epidemic that rates of immunization are low enough that epidemics can be spread now,” Cobb said. “The reasons for failing to immunize people … are based on unscientific and untrue objections, and it's just a good public-health measure.”

“People think these are trivial illnesses,” he said. “These are not. People die from measles.”

The measure, which had passed the state Senate but must return there for the expected approval of minor amendments, sparked impassioned debate among lawmakers and the public.

The dispute has sometimes been acrimonious.

Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a pediatrician and an author of the bill, has received death threats. And opponents of the proposal have filed papers with the state to initiate the process of recalling Pan and Sen. Bill Monning (D-Carmel), a vocal supporter, from office.

Hundreds of parents besieged the Capitol during a series of legislative hearings to oppose the bill in the belief that vaccines are unsafe, that the proposal would violate their privacy rights and that they alone — not the state — should choose whether to vaccinate their children.

More gathered for the vote on Thursday.

“This bill puts the state between children and parents regardless of your
position on vaccination,” said Luke Van der Westhuyzem, a parent from Walnut Creek who was among dozens of protesters at the Capitol.

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), who voted for the measure, said she understood the personal nature of parents' decisions about their children's health.

“While I respect the fundamental right to make that decision as a family,” Gonzalez told her colleagues, “we must balance that with the fact that none of us has the right to endanger others.”

Assemblyman Mike Gatto, a Glendale Democrat, voted against the bill, saying it violated parental rights.

“The broadness of this bill likely dooms it from a constitutional standpoint,” Gatto said, accusing the state of “infringing on the rights of children to attend school.”

More than 13,500 California kindergarten students currently have waivers based on their parents' beliefs. A parent group, A Voice For Choice, found Thursday's vote “unsettling,” spokeswoman Christina Hildebrand said.

If Brown signs it, she said, her organization plans to challenge the measure in court or with a referendum.

“We are pulling out all the stops,” she said. “This bill is unconstitutional.”

Dr. Catherine Sonquist Forest, medical director of the Stanford Health Care clinic in Los Altos, said immunizing more people is essential to protect babies too young to receive vaccines.

“This isn't a question of personal choice,” Forest said. “This is an obligation to society.”

Forest is caring for a 4-year-old boy dying of a rare complication of measles that infected his brain. He was infected when he was 5 months old and too young to be vaccinated.

Ariel Loop is a Pasadena mother whose 4-month-old boy, Mobius, contracted the measles during the Disneyland outbreak. She expressed relief that lawmakers approved the proposal.

“I'm hoping Jerry Brown does the right thing and signs it once it gets through the last Senate [vote],” Loop said.

The bill, SB 277 by Pan and Democrat Benjamin Allen of Santa Monica, passed the Assembly on a bipartisan 46-to-31 vote

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm of two minds. I don't like the idea of people getting religious exemptions to public safety. Especially when it involves the health of children. But I am also very skeptical of laws forcing people to accept medical procedures under most circumstances. Especially because, hard-line anti-vaccine nonsense aside, things like "unforeseen side effects" are common enough in reality.

To be clear, I'm not personally anti-vaccines. But I do think that the law should tread carefully.

[AMT]

I'm of two minds. I don't like the idea of people getting religious exemptions to public safety. Especially when it involves the health of children. But I am also very skeptical of laws forcing people to accept medical procedures under most circumstances. Especially because, hard-line anti-vaccine nonsense aside, things like "unforeseen side effects" are common enough in reality.

To be clear, I'm not personally anti-vaccines. But I do think that the law should tread carefully.

Actually that's the thing. Unforeseen side effects in vaccinations aren't common. It'd be different if there was just as much of a risk if not more of side effects over the disease... if that was the case, the vaccine wouldn't be in circulation. But in this case such a stance doesn't really hold water.

[Joun_Lord]

I'm like RR, I have two minds aboot this. Vaccinations are great and people should be having them done without the gubmint stepping in and telling them to get their jabs.

However there are risks, minor though they may be, and I'm enough of a dumb southern boy to not like the big bad evil Fed forcing people to have medical procedures. I don't like the government mandating what that you must get this procedure for your child. Getting into a slippery slope argument, this procedure may be generally beneficial but others may not be, especially new vaccines that all the side-effects may not be known.

Of course the government is only mandating this shite because parents are too dumb to do it themselves, like seatbelt laws. I don't trust the government but I trust the parents even less. The government might inflict unnecessary procedures upon a wee one but parents are even more likely to do so (circumcision, sexual reassignment surgery especially for botched wang snipping or ambiguous genitals, shit like that) and even more likely to NOT subject their kids to shit they need like vaccinations, education, seatbelts, proper gun safety, proper nutrition, and so on.

Its just a question whether or not one trusts parents or the government more for the wellbeing of children. In a perfect world we wouldn't even ahve parents or the gubmint deciding the fate and health of others but considering kids can't really choose for themselves we are stuck with kids getting forced to have their dicks and clits cut and brainwashed by kooks or forced to do things by the government.

One thing though, the exemption for home schooling seems foolish. I would think those kids who don't get the benefits of herd immunity and are far more likely to be around other kids not immunized would be the ones most needing to be vaccinated.

[Temjin]

The thing is though, when a parent doesn't vaccinate their child, it doesn't only affect their child. There are people out there, who for whatever reason, couldn't get a vaccination. Herd immunity will keep them safe, but only if enough people are getting the vaccines in the first place.

So, yeah, I'm perfectly fine with having these vaccine legally mandated.

[Iroscato]

Title is misleading, might want to check that.
But I'm glad of a small victory for common sense nonetheless.

[Borgholio]

The thing is that nobody is forcing parents to get their kids vaccinated. That is an outright lie cooked up by the anti-vaxxers. If you don't want to vaccinate your child, you don't have to. What this bill does is say that if you want to enter your child in a public daycare or school where they will come into contact with other children, they must be vaccinated first. If you're against that, then fine. You can home-school your child or take them to a private school. So the parents still very much have a choice.

[AMT]

Yeah I don't know what I did with that title.. Can a friendly mod clean it up

[biostem]

So what if this eliminates herd immunity, and puts people who rightfully cannot be vaccinated at risk. I think that people who aren't vaccinated should be required to disclose this fact to any public or open-to-the-public facility, and said facility should have the right to refuse them access. You, as an individual, have no right to spread potentially harmful diseases around. In fact, I'd go as far as to call in the CDC, and forcibly quarantine any unvaccinated people, as they are a danger to themselves and to others who, due to preexisting conditions or age, cannot be vaccinated. Of course, unvaccinated people in the later category would be exempt from these restrictions.

[Esquire]

I'm of two minds. I don't like the idea of people getting religious exemptions to public safety. Especially when it involves the health of children. But I am also very skeptical of laws forcing people to accept medical procedures under most circumstances. Especially because, hard-line anti-vaccine nonsense aside, things like "unforeseen side effects" are common enough in reality.

To be clear, I'm not personally anti-vaccines. But I do think that the law should tread carefully.

Here's the thing: antibiotics do not work as well as they used to. Thanks to overprescription and a total lack of long-term health planning, the day when they don't work at all is all too near. When - and that's when, not if - that day comes, the only thing standing between us and a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic will be mandatory vaccination, because left to their own devices too many people will choose to endanger themselves and others to avoid a minor inconvenience.

The number of permanent negative effects from vaccination is small in absolute terms, and positively miniscule compared to the millions who, again, will die horrible, preventable deaths as soon as we let public health policies slip. Weighed against that, who cares if some nutty cultists have their 'religious' beliefs violated? This is exactly the sort of situation laws exist to deal with; the kind when a vast public good requires a small personal sacrifice. It is not a slippery slope, even granting that there exist areas in which that's a valid objection at all. It is an essential function of a responsible society.

[Borgholio]

antibiotics do not work as well as they used to. Thanks to overprescription and a total lack of long-term health planning, the day when they don't work at all is all too near. When - and that's when, not if - that day comes, the only thing standing between us and a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic will be mandatory vaccination

Antibiotics would never work against the flu anyways...

[Esquire]

True, but vaccinations do. More or less, anyway - they're converging problems, though you're quite right that they aren't exactly identical. The main point is that our 'retail' approaches to healthcare, on the large scale, are starting to fail, so we've got to maintain the 'wholesale' ones.

[Borgholio]

Yeah I agree fully that we need to be far more careful with antibiotics. But as far as vaccines go, we should be handing those out like candy. Indeed, my polio vaccine when I was a kid was mixed in a squeeze-bottle of sugary water. When my mom was in junior high school, they passed out sugar cubes laced with smallpox vaccine. Didn't take much convincing there.

[Edi]

Title fixed.

[bilateralrope]

The thing is that nobody is forcing parents to get their kids vaccinated. That is an outright lie cooked up by the anti-vaxxers. If you don't want to vaccinate your child, you don't have to. What this bill does is say that if you want to enter your child in a public daycare or school where they will come into contact with other children, they must be vaccinated first. If you're against that, then fine. You can home-school your child or take them to a private school. So the parents still very much have a choice.

For those who have the option of private school or homeschooling for their children vaccines remain optional. But not everyone has those options. For example, take a couple where both parents are working low paying jobs and barely making ends meet. They aren't likely to have the time to homeschool their child, nor the money to afford a private school. So, for them, the vaccine is as mandatory as educating their kid.

In saying that, I fully agree that the only exceptions to vaccination should be for people with documented medical reasons for not getting vaccinated.

[Edi]

The thing is that nobody is forcing parents to get their kids vaccinated. That is an outright lie cooked up by the anti-vaxxers. If you don't want to vaccinate your child, you don't have to. What this bill does is say that if you want to enter your child in a public daycare or school where they will come into contact with other children, they must be vaccinated first. If you're against that, then fine. You can home-school your child or take them to a private school. So the parents still very much have a choice.

For those who have the option of private school or homeschooling for their children vaccines remain optional. But not everyone has those options. For example, take a couple where both parents are working low paying jobs and barely making ends meet. They aren't likely to have the time to homeschool their child, nor the money to afford a private school. So, for them, the vaccine is as mandatory as educating their kid.

In saying that, I fully agree that the only exceptions to vaccination should be for people with documented medical reasons for not getting vaccinated.

Most of the low income people actually have no objection to vaccinating their kids, because they know doing so will in all probably help them avoid entirely preventable medical emergencies and going bankrupt over hospital bills. The anti-vaccine bullshit is mostly an affectation of the well off and actually rich who generally do not have these concerns to the same extent.

[Flagg]

Religious exemptions my ass. You can have a religious exemption to eating a Christmas cookie, not a vaccination, or for that matter, anything to do with the health of a minor. Unless the kid will have a serious reaction to the vaccination, they get it. Period.

I don't give a flying fuck about your dumbass religion. That goes quadruple for Christian Scientists who would let their kid die of appendicitis and think if they pray hard enough the appendix won't burst, give them sepsis, and kill the kid. You do that? First degree murder, prison forever, no more kids raised by you! None of this "Well, haven't they suffered enough?" Gee, I dunno, let's fill their appendix with foul infected shit until it bursts and they die in agony, then they've suffered enough. But I'm not a proponent of the death penalty so first degree murder, life in prison, feel free to turn down treatment for the shanks in your eyeballs and pray real hard, asshole.

Also, none of this "Negligent homicide" or other less than murder in the first degree charges. Reasonable people know that if a child is very ill you take them to a doctor. If you fail to do that and they die, it's like walking into a bank with loaded guns and shooting and killing someone. Yeah, you didn't ever intend for someone to die when walking into the bank, but you knew there was a risk of that, you went in anyway, someone died, murder in the first.

[Simon_Jester]

The key point is that you're entirely right about the 'reasonable person' test. A reasonable person does know that for life-threatening emergencies you call a doctor. Fifty or a hundred years ago this was less universally accepted and one might imagine a reasonable person who distrusted doctors enough to NOT call them and instead to just try to pray it out because they assume doctors are useless. But today, this is no longer true.

[Borgholio]

Governor Brown has just signed the bill into law. Excellent. Let the whining commence.

http://www.latimes.com/local/political/ ... story.html

[Broomstick]

When my mom was in junior high school, they passed out sugar cubes laced with smallpox vaccine.

No, they didn't. That wasn't smallpox, that was another version of the polio vaccine.

Smallpox vaccination is multiple jabs with a forked needle, inevitably leaving a circular scar which may or may not disappear with time. Mine can still be made out 50 years after the fact.

Oh, yeah, that smallpox vaccination of mine: people who suffer from eczema and other skin conditions, such as myself, are at higher risk of smallpox vaccine complications, including deadly ones (basically, the vaccinating virus destroys the skin, up to all of it) In the 1960's when I was vaccinated the most extreme form was invariably deadly. Yet I was vaccinated.

There were instances of militaries in various locations forcing people to get smallpox vaccinations at gunpoint.

Violations of rights? Oh, sure - these days I would not be permitted to get a smallpox vaccine even if I wanted one due to being medically excluded. And the whole gunpoint thing. But no one gets smallpox anymore. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Was the risk of a small but real number of babies suffering horrific complications and/or death a fair trade off for eliminating a horrific disease that killed millions, maybe hundreds of millions over the history of our species?

I'm not too worried about the religious exemption - the reason "personal and moral belief" exemptions where added to so many laws is because very few religions explicitly ban vaccines. The Amish, for instance, not only allow vaccination but rates among them are rising. In fact, I can't name even a single religion that BANS vaccinations. If you know of one please let me know, I'd be curious to know of one.

Vaccinations are a matter of public safety. We can cut some slack with vaccines that either aren't terribly effective/safe, or are for diseases that are unlikely to spread as epidemics or a relatively mild for the vast majority of the population. For something like measles, which is NOT a trivial disease and carries real risks for a number of people, I think the argument can be made it's a matter of public safety. Your rights end where someone else's begin, and "don't infect me with a disease if you can avoid it" should be a basic right of people everywhere.

Don't like vaccines? Then there is quarantine - which is basically the option offered by home-schooling. Of course, a lot of colleges and universities these days require proof of vaccination, too, so good luck getting your home-schooled kid into higher education without them. On the other hand, 18 year olds who want a college education despite their woo-woo parents can decide to get vaccinated (or not) on their own.

[Lord Anubis]

I say that anyone attempting to claim a religious exemption should be expected to provide written formal documentation from their recognized, religious organization showing how this matter violates the tenets of their belief structure. Fairly easy to access most likely. I'm betting most organizations can easily print off sufficient quantities of the provided material. Secondly, after this provided they immediately forfeit the privacy of their medical files that they must provide without fail and be fully complete. These files will then be examined to find out how many procedures the parents have undergone that violate the same tenets and they will be required to provide written documentation from their religious group and an in-person explanation of why it was okay for them but not for their children. That should cut down about 90% of these claims for exemption.

[Flagg]

You know how you can usually tell which side is right? The side getting the anonymous death threats against them and their children. The side that must put up with almost, but shy, of what pro-choice doctors who provide all legal procedures on women.

The side that's right has to refute the same disproven bullshit over and over.

As for the sperm donor and former host of the current child: You don't own them. You're guardians recognized by the state based on blood and the fact that the female hosted it for 9 months. At the end of the day the child is the ultimate responsibility of the state. And it's my opinion that parents who have a child healthy enough to be vaccinated and refuse are unfit and the state has an obligation for the sake of both the child and public health to force the issue and somehow ensure the kid gets all vaccinations on time, whether they attend public school or not.

It's a few shots required to keep the ones that are most most vulnerable (the children who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons) protected, which is the single most important reason we have society in the first place as far as I'm concerned.

[bilateralrope]

Smallpox vaccination is multiple jabs with a forked needle, inevitably leaving a circular scar which may or may not disappear with time. Mine can still be made out 50 years after the fact.

Out of curiosity, why was the forked needle used ?

Google just turns up other details about the vaccine.

Of course, a lot of colleges and universities these days require proof of vaccination, too, so good luck getting your home-schooled kid into higher education without them. On the other hand, 18 year olds who want a college education despite their woo-woo parents can decide to get vaccinated (or not) on their own.

What's the cost of receiving all the required vaccinations to the student and/or their family ?

[Grumman]

I say that anyone attempting to claim a religious exemption should be expected to provide written formal documentation from their recognized, religious organization showing how this matter violates the tenets of their belief structure. Fairly easy to access most likely. I'm betting most organizations can easily print off sufficient quantities of the provided material. Secondly, after this provided they immediately forfeit the privacy of their medical files that they must provide without fail and be fully complete. These files will then be examined to find out how many procedures the parents have undergone that violate the same tenets and they will be required to provide written documentation from their religious group and an in-person explanation of why it was okay for them but not for their children. That should cut down about 90% of these claims for exemption.

It is not the government's place to go trolling through your history to prove you're not really religious, or to discriminate between members of sanctioned ("recognised") religions and unsanctioned religions.

The government should not specifically suppress religious acts for being religious acts, but that's as far as the religious exemption should go (and frankly, that reasoning should also be required to suppress secular acts). If a law permits a religious exemption it should not be a law, because "my imaginary friend say so" is no more a legitimate excuse than "I don't wanna."

Smallpox vaccination is multiple jabs with a forked needle, inevitably leaving a circular scar which may or may not disappear with time. Mine can still be made out 50 years after the fact.

Out of curiosity, why was the forked needle used ?

So that it could hold the vaccine. The vaccine wasn't injected with a hypodermic needle, it was held between the prongs of the tip.

[Broomstick]

Smallpox vaccination is multiple jabs with a forked needle, inevitably leaving a circular scar which may or may not disappear with time. Mine can still be made out 50 years after the fact.

Out of curiosity, why was the forked needle used ?

It was found to be an easy and efficient way to get the vaccine material under the skin in sufficient quantities to be effective. The narrow fork allows a known quantity of material to be wicked up via capillary action, so it provides dosing as well as a means of application. It's possible other means might have been equally effective (earlier forms of vaccination did use alternatives) but the technique took over. Not entirely clear why.

Of course, a lot of colleges and universities these days require proof of vaccination, too, so good luck getting your home-schooled kid into higher education without them. On the other hand, 18 year olds who want a college education despite their woo-woo parents can decide to get vaccinated (or not) on their own.

What's the cost of receiving all the required vaccinations to the student and/or their family ?

These days many, if not most, can be obtained at low or even no cost. You may have to search a bit, but you can get them.