SB 2762 will herd children who were unlucky enough to suffer a vaccine reaction, but lucky enough to have a doctor acknowledge it, into a database where the state will be able to track them, freely violate their rights, and kick them out of school.
Medical professionals agree that all pharmaceuticals carry potential risks. Just as there is a small percentage of children who are allergic to penicillin, there is a percentage of children who have serious reactions after vaccination. SB 276 proponents claim only “1 in a million” reactions, but that’s referring to anaphylactic reactions, not reactions like seizures and paralysis.
Currently, in California, only less than one percent of children have vaccine medical exemptions because of a previous adverse event or family history which puts the child or sibling at risk. Under SB 276,1 as it’s currently written, there would be a narrow scope of “approved” reactions—anaphylaxis and encephalopathy—and even if a child experienced those, there is no clause for family history so siblings would have to be vaccinated as well. I can’t imagine the decision these parents will have to make, being coerced into risking repeat injury or death, just to keep their children in school.
Physicians are bound to their Hippocratic Oath to “First, do no harm,” but government officials do not carry any liability for injury or harm, nor do pharmaceutical companies since the 1986 National Childhood Vaccination Injury Act protects them. SB 2763 would be a liability-free, government-mandated system that harms these vulnerable children again.
As a nurse, I understand the desire to maintain community immunity. In 2018, the CDC reported that California has immunization rates above 96 percent for its school children, one of the highest rates in the nation. The California Department of Public Health reported 15 pediatric measles cases this year, not one related to school children with medical exemptions.
Yet SB 2764 would systematically discriminate against these children with special needs, their rights to privacy, and their free and equal education would be eliminated.
Is this discrimination of less than one percent of children with medical exemptions really a public health crisis and worth the $40 million it will cost taxpayers? The government should be focused on legitimate public health issues, like the Typhus, Typhoid Fever and TB outbreaks among our growing homeless population, rather than this minority of injured children.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Bea s a pediatric intensive care nurse in Southern California.
Featured image is from The Vaccine Reaction