The New California Personal Belief Exemption Form Unveiled

The anti-vaccine movement is a study in contradictions. They want fewer vaccines, but advocate for actions that ensure vaccines that could be taken off the schedule aren't. They want studies done, and even get involved in their design, but then reject them when the studies produce results they don't like. And they clamor for informed consent, but then raise a stink when efforts are made at improving education and helping parents make informed choices.

That was the case last year when, in March 2012, a bill was introduced in California (AB2109) that would require parents who want to opt out of required school immunizations for their children to get information about the "benefits and risks of the immunization and the health risks of the communicable diseases listed in Section 120335 to the person and to the community" from an authorized health care provider (which was rather broadly defined). These efforts at ensuring parents make informed choices were so objectionable, that anti-vaccine pro-informed choice activists vehemently opposed the bill. Yes, in the twisted world of people like NVIC's Barbara Loe Fisher, a doctor largely responsible for a measles outbreak or certain reality-challenged celebrities, a bill that requires parents be informed tramples on parents' rights to be informed. Yeah, I don't get it either, but supposedly it makes sense to them.

At any rate, AB2109 was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on September 30, 2012, but with a catch. As I wrote at the time, Gov. Brown issued a signing statement with it, stating that he would direct the Department of Public Health to allow for religious exemptions to the whole getting informed piece of the legislation, despite the fact that California does not have any religious exemptions to vaccinations. As I noted at the time, there were significant problems with this, both legal and practical.

Well, the California Department of Public Health has announced the new form and made it available here (PDF).

Oregon Looks to Educate, Improve Public Health

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about two bills introduced in Vermont aimed at improving public health through modifications of the state's religious and philosophical exemption laws. One, H.114, would remove non-medical exemptions for the pertussis vaccine, since Vermont had the second highest incidence of pertussis in the entire nation in 2012. The other bill, H.138, would only suspend non-medical exemptions on a vaccine- and school-specific basis if uptake for the vaccine at the school drops below 90%. Once uptakes improve to 90% or more, non-medical exemptions will once more be allowed.

Now it's Oregon's turn to work on boosting public health.

AB2109 Signed! But Gov. Brown Creates Other Concerns

On Thursday, I echoed Orac in his call for people to support California's Gov. Jerry Brown in signing AB2109 into law. This bill would help strengthen California's school vaccination laws by requiring that parents become informed about the risks and benefits of vaccinating prior to getting a personal belief exemption for their children. Anti-vaccine activists vehemently opposed this bill, showing that they are actually against informed consent. They even recruited comedian Rob Schneider as their new Jenny McCarthy, acting as a celebrity spokesperson to champion their nonsense. And based on my twitter exchanges with him, he's swallowed their tripe hook, line and sinker.

I spent the weekend mostly off-line, so I missed a rather big development in all of this. As user "Unknown" commented on my call to arms, Gov. Brown signed the bill! This is fabulous news, but it's tempered with a bit of, well, if not bad news, at least something a little perplexing.

Praying, in Vain, for Exemption

In polite conversation, especially with strangers, there are some topics that you should just avoid. Anything related to politics or religion can, unless you really know your audience, produce rather, shall we say, heated disagreements. Okay, let's be real. When politics and religion come up, people can get vehemently argumentative. There tends to be such a strong personal investment in political and religious beliefs that to question the belief is seen as somehow questioning or even denigrating the individual. From personal experience, it's hard to avoid that even when sticking to the facts and avoiding personal opinion. So people tend to steer clear of such conversation topics in order to play nice, keep the peace and avoid jeopardizing friendships.

Vaccines have become a topic similar to politics and religion. Anytime I meet someone new and the subject arises (and even with good friends, on occasion), there's always this sense of trepidation. Has the person I'm talking to read something on the interwebz that they found convincing enough to distrust vaccines? How personally invested are they? If they've been fooled by anti-vaccine propaganda (which, admittedly, can be quite convincing to someone who has not been following things for a while), what arguments will they use to justify their beliefs? The rationalizations will very likely draw politics or religion (or both) into the mix, and given how intertwined are personal identity and political/religious beliefs, sticking solely to facts and reason aren't likely to sway the person. In such cases, fighting fire with fire, so to speak, might work, but it's a risky proposition, especially when using religious arguments.

The problem is that once you start bringing religion into an argument dealing with non-religious policies and topics, you get bad religion and bad policy. Take, for instance, a religiously-based list of anti-vaccine arguments [EDIT 8/12/14: updated link to a cached version of the page, as the original appears to have been taken down] recently forwarded to me.