SACRAMENTO -- In a historic decision that could reverberate nationwide, Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a bill mandating that almost all California schoolchildren be fully vaccinated, regardless of their parents' personal or religious beliefs.
By signing Senate Bill 277 into law, Brown pushed the Golden State -- long a bastion of liberal vaccine exemptions -- into an odd political alliance with two conservative states, Mississippi and West Virginia. Until Tuesday, they were the only states that permitted medical exemptions as the sole legitimate reasons to sidestep vaccinations.
Otto Coleman, 6, waits outside the Governor’s office with his brother Fenton, 4, left, and father Joshua, to deliver a stack of petitions with
Otto Coleman, 6, waits outside the Governor's office with his brother Fenton, 4, left, and father Joshua, to deliver a stack of petitions with thousands of signatures calling on California Gov. Jerry Brown to veto a measure requiring nearly all California school children to be vaccinated Monday, June 29, 2015, in Sacramento, Calif. The state Senate approved the bill sending it to Brown. Joshua Coleman said his son has been wheelchair bound as a result of an adverse reaction to a vaccine. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) ( Rich Pedroncelli )
"The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases," Brown wrote in his signing message. "While it's true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community."
But the governor also noted that the Legislature had specifically amended SB277 to exempt children from immunizations whenever their physicians conclude that there are "circumstances, including but not limited to, family medical history, for which the physician does not recommend immunization.''
Still, opponents who have rallied and railed against the bill at the state Capitol -- arguing vociferously that the legislation violates their parental rights -- vowed both to sue the state and take their case to California voters.
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"We are going to have a referendum to ask the public to put a hold on the law," said Palo Alto resident Christina Hildebrand, president and co-founder of A Voice For Choice. "We will continue to fight this -- we are not going away," added the mother of two unvaccinated children.
Whether or not the remaining medical exemption will open the floodgates to parents seeking to get around the new vaccine requirements is up to their doctors, who will have enormous powers under the new law. But many physicians believe very few of their colleagues are likely to agree to medical exemptions unless they're truly necessary.
Among them is Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, a pediatrician who co-authored the legislation with Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica.
"We trust doctors' professional judgment," Pan said Tuesday after a news conference at a Sacramento elementary school where none of the students has skipped vaccines because of their parents' personal beliefs.
"Californians have spoken. The governor and Legislature have spoken," said Pan, surrounded by a crowd of several dozen beaming mothers and young children wearing "I (heart) immunity" stickers.
"No more preventable contagions. No more outbreaks. No more hospitalizations. No more deaths. And no more fear," Pan said. The bill "is now law."
The law doesn't take effect until July 1, 2016. But even then, parents will be required to show proof of vaccinations only when their children enter kindergarten, seventh grade or change school districts.
Political analysts on Tuesday were skeptical that opponents will be able to get a referendum on the November 2016 ballot.
If opponents succeed in placing a measure on the ballot, the law would not take effect until after the election. They have 90 days from Tuesday to collect 365,880 valid signatures.
"Any citizen can take advantage of the initiative process," said Dorit Reiss, a professor and vaccine law expert at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
And anyone, she said, can sue for anything. But, Reiss noted, the nation's courts have consistently upheld immunization requirements because they protect such important public health interests.
"Opponents may not like that, but I doubt it will change," Reiss said.
The clamor around the elimination of California's "personal belief exemption" heated up after a measles outbreak started last December at Disneyland. By the time they declared the outbreak over in mid-April, state health officials confirmed 136 measles cases in California. Nearly 20 percent of those cases required hospitalization.
Opponents of the new law also have threatened to recall politicians. But some pundits on Tuesday scoffed at the notion.
"Any legislator, if he or she has any brains or political smarts, has already computed that risk" before they voted on the bill, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a veteran political analyst at the University of Southern California.
Regarding the opponents' chances of a successful referendum that would repeal the law, she put it this way:
"How much money do they have? Will they qualify? What is their campaign organization? What will the other side look like? And how much money will the other side have?"
Unfortunately for the opponents, she said, polling shows the majority of Californians strongly support the get-tough vaccine legislation. Whether or not California's law will prompt legislation in other states remains unclear.
"What we've found in general over time is that some states lead and others follow," said Dr. Walter Orenstein, president elect of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. "So having a big state like California make this policy means that other states will pay a lot more attention as they consider their own policies. That would be my guess."
But Jeffe isn't so sure.
Now that the Disneyland measles outbreak is history, "there won't be the kind of pressure there was in California to move on this in other states," she said. "It's totally off the radar screen now nationally."