California’s Childhood Vaccination Law

California law “requires that children be up-to-date on their immunizations (shots) to attend school or child care”, according to the California Department of Health Services. The law allows for exemptions because of a medical condition, but it also allows for an exemption based on “personal beliefs” which are not specified. The exemption certificate requires a doctor’s signature, but it’s not for the purpose of identifying a medical exemption; it’s to certify that the doctor has counselled the parents about the risks and benefits of vaccination and the risks of communicable diseases. The requirement for the doctor’s signature gets the doctor and the state off the hook if anything bad happens to the child as a consequence of not being vaccinated. Parents can choose to ignore the doctor’s advice, and they’ll still get the exemption.

In other words, California has a “mandatory requirement” that children be vaccinated to attend school, except that in practical terms it really doesn’t. Other states have similar laws. It seems that the politicians who write these laws are trying to satisfy everybody, with the result that the laws just don't work for the majority of people who favor vaccinations.

Parents of unvaccinated children often say, “What does it matter to you if my child isn’t vaccinated?” Well, there are always some children who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons, even if they wanted to be vaccinated. An example is childhood leukemia; the chemotherapy for leukemia leaves a child vulnerable to infection but unable to be vaccinated effectively. Children with leukemia are put at risk when other children who could be vaccinated choose not to be vaccinated. And of course all children under the age of 1, who are too young to be vaccinated yet, are put at risk too.

What will it take to open people’s eyes to the fact that vaccinations are a good thing? I hope it doesn’t take the return of a truly debilitating disease such as polio. But it may.