California has decided to give the powers to the state public health officials to decide which children can skip the vaccinations before attending school. This move has been made to counter bogus exemptions made by the local doctors.
Medical examinations can be revoked by this authority by the state health officials which are granted by local doctors if they are found to be in contradiction with the federal immunization standards or fraudulent in nature. The proposal has come after the outbreak of measles in Washington, New York and other parts of the country which has prompted the state to end non-medical exemptions.
In 2016, all the non-medical immunization exemptions were eliminated by California. Now, the new law is proposed to give the power of deciding the qualifying person for medical exemptions in the hands of State Public Health officials rather than the local doctors. The doctors will be recommending the exclusions along with the relevant reasons to the State Public health department and will have to certify that they have thoroughly examined the patient.
This step is taken to track and curb those fraudulent doctors who are helping parents to avoid vaccinating their children. It has been found that these doctors are selling their exemptions through online marketing and word-of-mouth and monetizing their medical license and in turn, putting the children in danger.
The parents are upset b this decision and gather in the Capitol hallway to protest against this measure because the immunization rate is very high under the current law. As per the current records, the immunization rate in more than 95% which is sufficient to keep the outbreaks of diseases from spreading.
But the rate of medical exemptions in schools have also tripled but it is still under 1% of the school children in the state. Only children who have severe allergies, are undergoing chemotherapy or having HIV virus should avoid vaccinations, otherwise not.
The parents trust their family doctors and their genetic history which show that their children would be poor candidates for vaccination but these do not qualify as exemptions under the federal guidelines which is why the protest against the measure is loud and clear.
