Tag: laws
California Governor Signs Tough New Vaccination Law

California Governor Signs Tough New Vaccination Law

By Phil Willon and Melanie Mason, Los Angeles Times, (TNS)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Adopting one of the most far-reaching vaccination laws in the nation Tuesday, California barred religious and other personal-belief exemptions for schoolchildren, a move that could affect tens of thousands of students and sets up a potential court battle with opponents of immunization.

California’s weakened public health defenses against measles and other preventable diseases led to the adoption of the measure, signed Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown, intended to stem the rising number of parents opting not to inoculate their children.

Public health officials said a proliferation of waivers, many sought because of unfounded health concerns, helped fuel a measles outbreak that started at Disneyland in December and quickly spread across the West, infecting 150 people.

“I think it’s a great day for California’s children. You’re living in a state that just got a little safer,” said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an advocate of immunization.

California joins Mississippi and West Virginia as the only states to ban vaccination waivers based on religion. All 50 states require immunization of children starting school, although about 20 allow exemptions based on personal beliefs.

Beginning with the 2016 school year, the new law could affect more than 80,000 California students.

Only medical exceptions will be allowed for those entering day care and kindergarten. Children with physician-certified allergies and immune-system deficiencies, for example, will be exempted.

Parents can still decline to vaccinate children who attend private home-based schools or public independent studies off campus.
“The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases,” Brown said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “While it’s true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community.”

Brown had supported a religious exemption as recently as 2012, and faced criticism because of it.

This year, hundreds of people opposed to vaccination descended on the Capitol to protest the new legislation. They argued that it would violate parents’ right to make decisions about their children’s health and interfere with their children’s right to a public education.

“I’m heartbroken,” said Rebecca Estepp of Poway, who belongs to the advocacy group California Coalition for Health Choice, which opposed the legislation. “It’s so coercive. It’s so punitive.”

Estepp, who said her 17-year-old son was injured by a vaccine, said opponents would be likely to challenge the law in court.
Dotty Hagmier, a mother of three from Orange County who also criticized the measure, said many families may choose home schools or move out of the state.

“These moms are strong,” she said. “And they’re not going to just give up. They’re not going to give up their rights.”

Health officials say declining immunization rates have led to a loss of “herd immunity” in some schools and communities, a situation in which high local vaccination rates against a contagious disease suppress it from spreading.

“When you get really close to immunizing everybody … the less you’ll see of those diseases,” said Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, interim health officer for Los Angeles County.

Gunzenhauser said the Los Angeles public health department would work with schools to make sure children who register without being up to date on vaccinations become caught up as soon as possible.

Until recently, many preventable diseases, including whooping cough and mumps, were thought to be largely eradicated due to widespread inoculation. The United States declared measles to be eliminated from the country in 2000.

Fueled by persistent assertions that vaccines were linked to autism, a growing number of parents began declining immunizations for their children. Vaccination rates in California’s kindergarten classes steadily declined between 2001 and 2013, particularly in affluent and coastal areas of the state.

As immunization rates dipped, there were flare-ups of measles. A 2012 bill required parents who sought personal-belief exemptions to first be informed by a health care professional about the benefits and risks of vaccines. Brown signed that bill but carved out an exception for those who declined vaccines for religious reasons.

The Disneyland outbreak — the worst in California in 15 years — was a catalyst for further legislative action.

Public health officials warn that California remains at high risk of another outbreak because immunization levels in some communities remain so low. Dr. Gil Chavez, the state epidemiologist, said in April that immunization rates in some schools are at 50 percent or lower, creating an ideal environment for the virus to spread.

Last fall, 13,592 kindergarten students — 2.54 percent of California’s kindergarteners — had personal-belief exemptions on file. That is a sharp increase from 1998, when 4,032 kindergarteners, or 0.77 percent, had them.

The new vaccination law goes into effect a year from now. On July 1, 2016, newly enrolled children in day care and school will need to be immunized absent medical waivers.

Children who have a personal-belief exemption on file before Jan. 1, 2016 will have more time to comply with the law.

Such children who are in nursery school or preschool must comply to enroll in kindergarten; those in elementary school must do so by 7th grade. Those already in junior high and high school will remain exempt.

Leah Russin, a Palo Alto mother who worked with Vaccinate California, an advocacy group in favor of the legislation, said the new law helps assuage fears that many communicable diseases could afflict her 22-month-old son, Leo.

“There are a lot of things to worry about when you have a little kid,” Russin said, “but I no longer have to worry that he’s going to get measles at school.”
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(Times staff writers Rong-Gong Lin, Eryn Brown and Emily Foxhall contributed to this report.)

Photo: Not the most magical place on earth when children are sick. The measles outbreak at Disneyland earlier this year triggered California to enact one of the strictest laws for vaccination in the country. This is Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland. Tom Bricker via Flickr

Senate GOP Presidential Hopefuls Take On D.C.

Senate GOP Presidential Hopefuls Take On D.C.

By Bridget Bowman, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — In the course of eight days, two Senate Republicans eyeing the presidency introduced measures to strike down District of Columbia laws, causing local officials and activists to accuse them of using the District for their own political gain.

“I think it’s no accident that both of these senators just before announcing (their interest in running for president), try to use the District as the fallback for their base,” Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), said in a March 27 phone interview. “It’s not as if we have the right to keep people interfering with our local laws. So why not pick on us?”

On March 18, five days before Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced he was officially running for president, he introduced resolutions of disapproval to strike down two D.C. laws he argues violate religious freedom. Eight days later, on March 26, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced a bill that proposes loosening D.C. gun laws, some of the strictest in the nation, and stripping the D.C. Council of its ability to enact gun legislation. And they are not the only likely Senate GOP presidential candidates who have taken aim at the District. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), unsuccessfully worked to overturn D.C. gun laws in the 113th Congress.

D.C. officials say the actions are an effort by Republicans to boost their national profiles and bolster their conservative credentials ahead of a hotly contested primary.

At-large D.C. Councilwoman Elissa Silverman said on WAMU’s “The Kojo Nnamdi Show” last week the lawmakers are “using our city to score political points for the Republican presidential primaries.”

But Republicans say it is about policy, not politics. When asked to respond to local criticisms last week, Rubio said his bill was about protecting the Constitution.

“I favor local control as well, but local control cannot supersede our Constitution,” Rubio said. “The Second Amendment isn’t an opinion, it’s a constitutional right.”

Sean Spicer, the spokesman for the Republican National Committee, also pushed back against the notion the measures are part of a campaign strategy, pointing to the motives for why they introduced the measures in the first place: protecting religious freedom and the Second Amendment.

“I would take them at their word,” Spicer said. “I don’t agree that it’s a strategy.”

But District officials and activists say the timing and the issues point to political motivations, and note D.C. is an easy target due to congressional oversight over the District.

“To say it’s not a strategy, I think, is almost laughable when you think about the fact that these came back-to-back with two potential candidates and they’re targeting readily identifiable parts of the Republican primary base,” said James Jones of DC Vote, a group advocating for District autonomy.

“The main reason people go after D.C. is because it’s seen as a free shot,” Jones said. “They are not accountable to the people of D.C. The people of D.C. can’t vote them out of office.”

Jones and Norton suggested the senators could also be taking advantage of a common misunderstanding about D.C.’s political status.

“Most Americans don’t know enough about D.C. to realize that they do not have this jurisdiction,” Norton said. They both said understanding that D.C. has a local government, elected by the people, is imperative to understand that, in their view, the Republicans are violating federalist principles.

“Imagine what the tea party would think if they really knew that (the senators) were barging in on a local jurisdiction’s entirely local matter?” Norton asked.

The D.C. delegate said she could not remember a time when presidential contenders actively weighed in on D.C. affairs.

“I never remember that,” Norton said. “I’ve never seen people so hungry for press that they stoop this low. Most people run for president on national issues, even if they’re issues like the ones that these senators have targeted.”

A D.C. government official with presidential campaign experience said the senators could be attempting to set themselves apart from a potentially crowded field of contenders. “I think basically the Republican field is incredibly flat,” the official said, noting there is no clear front-runner. “They’re just trying to differentiate themselves.”

One Senate Republican who recently ran for president said he focused more on national issues when seeking to become commander in chief.

“That was not my top priority.” Senator John McCain (R-AZ), told CQ Roll Call on March 26 when asked about the Cruz and Rubio measures targeting D.C. “I thought there were larger issues that I needed to be involved in. If they feel that those issues are important to them, it’s a free country.”

McCain also remarked, “It means they’re not counting on the Washington, D.C., vote.” The District is decidedly Democratic, overwhelmingly handing its three electoral votes to Democratic candidates since it first received electoral votes in 1961.

Asked whether their efforts would help the senators’ national campaigns, McCain said, “Probably. And maybe that’s the purpose. But maybe they ought to make sure that they are driving around Washington in an unmarked car.”

Photo: Jonathon Coleman via Flickr

113th Congress Just Barely Avoids Distinction Of Least Productive In History

113th Congress Just Barely Avoids Distinction Of Least Productive In History

By Michael A. Memoli, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — The 113th Congress will just have to settle for being bad instead of the worst — at least as far as productivity is concerned.

President Barack Obama signed a whopping 51 bills Thursday, the White House announced, bringing the most recent tally of laws enacted in the past Congress to 286, according to a Los Angeles Times review.

That would be just three more than the 283 public laws enacted in the previous Congress that served from 2011-12, which was the lowest tally since formal record-keeping began in 1947.

The previous low before that was 333 public laws in the 104th Congress that came to power in the Newt Gingrich Revolution of 1994.

As usual, the so-called lame-duck period of Congress that followed the elections proved anything but. Of the 286 laws passed since this Congress convened in January 2013, more than a third were passed and signed just since Nov. 1.

But for every major piece of legislation like the $1.1 trillion funding bill (or “Cromnibus”) and a new defense authorization bill, there were dozens of parochial items among the unfinished business.

In fact, a Times review found that 56 of the new laws produced by this Congress — about one of every five — is simply to name or rename federal buildings, roads, or bridges — including 38 post offices.

The final act of the Senate when it adjourned late Tuesday evening was to approve a resolution “honoring conservation on the centennial of the passenger pigeon extinction.” The measure does not require a presidential signature, though.

Photo: Speaker Boehner via Flickr