The State Senate has approved the California vaccination bill that aims to put an end to the “personal belief exemption” that has managed to empower some parents to refuse the immunization of their children as a consequence of their own personal or religious beliefs.
This bill has a great potential to become the law on the matter in the state of California and therefore, more children from this state will be vaccinated.
It is impossible to immunize all the children, as some valuable exemptions remain part of the bill, such as allergic reactions that the child might have to the active substance in the vaccine or any other component, or diseases of the immune system.
Furthermore, if the child has a history of adverse reactions to other vaccines or medication, then this constitutes cause for further investigation and eventually exemption if no other solution is provided by medical professionals.
The exemptions targeted by this bill are only the ones that involve religious beliefs or personal feelings towards the vaccination of the children. Naturally, this has rendered a massive wave of protests, because some people appear to be strongly offended by the fact that they are told how to treat their own children.
As a cause of an ongoing campaign regarding the dangers of vaccines, more and more parents have opted out of the immunization plan. So many in fact that it has lead to the contamination of people with previously extremely controllable diseases.
Such an example is the Disneyland missals outbreak that lead to 136 people getting the disease. And it all goes back to vaccination. What most people who opt out of it forget is that a vaccine is not only meant to protect the person who receives it, but also every single person with whom he/she comes in contact with afterwards.
There are currently two states that have eliminated the “personal belief exemption”, namely Mississippi and West Virginia and California aims to be the third state to fortify its vaccination law.
“Vaccines are necessary to protect us. That protection has been eroding,”, said Senator Richard Pan, one of the lead supporters of this bill. Despite the fact that he expects great protest from the opponents of this bill, he says that “passage in the Senate is a good sign it will become law”.
While lead scientific authorities such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) strongly recommend that the immunization plan be followed strictly and point out that adverse effects are a lesser burden than that of the diseases that children could contract and contaminate others with.
Furthermore, numerous studies are being conducted so that the myths of the anti-vaccine campaign be taken down one by one and so that the general population be reassured that vaccination is the right course of action.
Unfortunately, it has gotten to the point where all scientific data supporting vaccination is considered to be generated by the medication industry and is therefore deemed entirely unreliable.
The California vaccination bill has a very strong chance of becoming state law in the near future. However, it remains to be seen if California will be the third state to rule against the “personal belief exemption” regarding immunization.
Image Source: bacvi