Governor: Do your part to push vaccinations for all – Marin Independent Journal, 6/15/2019

Like the June 13 editorial, I strongly urge Governor Newsom to support SB 276, Dr. Richard Pan’s bill that tightens the rules for medical exemptions to school vaccination requirements.

This bill is necessary, given this year’s national measles epidemic, and given the few unscrupulous doctors who hand out fake exemptions to anti-vaccination parents in California. Requiring the California Department of Public Health to review medical exemptions to ensure they comply with criteria established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would eliminate bogus exemptions. It would protect the health of unvaccinated young infants, children with vaccination allergies, and children and adults with cancer and auto-immune disorders.

New York recently joined California in eliminating a religious exemption for school vaccinations. Governor, this is not about your role is a parent; this is about essential state public health policy designed to prevent epidemics of contagious diseases. In the meantime, I urge the Medical Board of California to discipline and/or de-license those unscrupulous doctors.

— Barbara Solomon, Corte Madera