Calif. Bill Toughening Vaccine Requirements for Children Stalls in Senate Committee

Veronica Elliot Friday, April 17, 2015

Research assistant Georgina Bowyer works on a vaccine for Ebola at The Jenner Institute in Oxford, southern England January 16, 2015. Photograph taken January 16, 2015. | (Photo: Reuters/Eddie Keogh)

Legislation seeking to up to vaccination rate of children in California failed to receive approval from the state's Senate Education Committee this week due to part of the bill that would prevent children from attending public school if they are unvaccinated.

The legislation, entitled Senate Bill 277, received criticism from those who argued that it would prevent children from attending public schools if they did not have the required vaccinations. The legislation, authored by State Senator Dr. Richard Pan, sought to do away with California's "personal beliefs exemption" that allows parents to refuse to vaccinate their children based on personal or religious beliefs.

Lawmakers with the Senate Education Committee said they could not vote on a bill that would possibly prevent children from attending public school. Sen. Pan reportedly has one week to reach a compromise on his bill so that it may pass the Senate Education Committee.

Jean Munoz Keese, a spokeswoman for California Coalition for Health Choice, a group that is fighting Senate Bill 277, told the San Jose Mercury News that Pan's decision to halt the bill on Friday shows that the legislation is not fit for becoming a law.

"It shows that legislators realize it's a bad bill," Keese said. "They started looking closely at this bill and realized it is not what Sen. Pan wants people to believe. It essentially will deny children the right to access public education and there are no answers in the current bill to address that."

One father in support of the legislation said at the Senate Education Committee meeting that he was in fear of his son's life during the recent Measles outbreak in California because his son was not able to receive a measles vaccination while undergoing his Leukemia treatment.

"We're here for the community," father Carl Krawitt of Corte Madera said, as reported by The Davis Enterprise. "You have a duty to legislate from solid evidence, not from fear, and keep our schools safe."