California Lawmakers Propose Requiring State Approval for Vaccine Exemptions

A bill introduced this week in the California Legislature would require the state health department to approve and track all physician-authorized vaccine exemptions. Since 2015, when California eliminated the “personal belief” dispensation for vaccination requirements, the rate of medical exemptions for kindergartners has more than tripled, to 0.7 percent for the 2017-2018 school year. According to the bill’s sponsors, some of those exemptions were granted fraudulently. We’ll discuss the proposal.