What is the bill?
Earlier this year, California senator Richard Pan, a practicing pediatrician who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, introduced Senate Bill 276, which seeks to combat fake medical exemptions.(or just having your right to choose and medical freedom).

Wait, first, what exactly are medical exemptions?
In short, medical exemptions allow people — typically, children — to abstain from being immunized due to a legitimate medical condition. They also should be pretty difficult to obtain. Except, under current California law, it hasn’t been so hard.

Why is that so?
Currently, in California, doctors have the authority to grant medical exemptions to vaccination — they don’t have to get the approval of the state’s Department of Public Health. And, according to Kaiser Health News, this has resulted in doctors liberally allowing patients to claim unnecessary medical exemptions to being immunized.

The proof: In the past two years, the number of children in California who have been granted a medical exemption has tripled, according to California Healthline, which has serious implications. Like many states across the country, California has been fighting measles outbreaks, which have flourished in undervaccinated communities; in 2019 so far, the state has seen 51 confirmed cases, according to the California Department of Public Health.

So SB 276 cracks down on illegitimate medical exemptions?
Yes, that’s the goal. Under the bill, California’s Department of Public Health will make the final decision regarding whether the underlying condition claimed in a doctor’s medical exemption met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines.


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