North Coast legislators support stronger vaccine mandate

Lawmakers who represent nearly all of the North Coast are united in support of a controversial bill that would require California schoolchildren to be vaccinated.

Senate Bill 277, which is scheduled to be heard in the Senate’s Judiciary Committee Tuesday, would eliminate California’s personal-belief and religious exemptions for vaccinations and prevent unvaccinated children from being able to attend public or private schools. Medical waivers would only be available for children who have health problems.

Parts of the North Coast have some of the highest opt-out rates for vaccination in the state. But legislators representing the region remain committed to ending most vaccination exemptions.

“I believe that while the folks that oppose this are certainly turning out in significant numbers in the capitol, I think clearly public opinion is on the side of public safety, which is what vaccines are really all about,” said Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg.

Wood, a dentist, Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, signed on as co-authors of SB 277. One of the bill’s principal authors is Richard Pan, a Democratic pediatrician from Sacramento.

Many who have opposed the bill view vaccines as a personal choice and say parents should be able to decide what’s best for their children. Critics of that viewpoint accuse so-called anti-vaxxers of putting their own interests above the public’s welfare.

Wood summed up that point Monday. “What’s missing from the discussion is the choice you are making for your child could have a detrimental impact on my child,” he said in an interview.

Legislative efforts to curtail vaccine exemptions gained momentum in statehouses across the nation in the wake of a measles outbreak earlier this year that started at Disneyland and sickened more than 100 people in the United States and Mexico.

On the North Coast, debate has raged for years over whether parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids are acting out of selfishness and ignorance, or out of prudent caution.

Many who opted out cited studies that purportedly demonstrated a link between vaccines and autism. Those studies were debunked years ago.

The most recent state data shows that as many as 36 schools from across Sonoma County have vaccination rates for measles below the level needed to protect the general population. At some schools, the vaccination rate for measles is half that level.

Sebastopol Independent Charter School, with 10 of 44 kindergartners immunized against measles, had the lowest rate - 22.7 percent - among 111 county schools included in a California Department of Public Health report on kindergartners who enrolled last fall.

Overall, Sonoma County public and private schools posted a 91.48 percent kindergarten immunization rate this year, just below the statewide rate of 92.55 percent but above the 90 percent threshold that indicates protection for the population at large, a concept known as “herd immunity.”

Hundreds of parents who are opposed to ending vaccination exemptions packed hearings before the Senate’s Education Committee in the past two weeks, prompting a delay in the proceedings to give Pan the opportunity to tweak his bill. The changes include giving parents of unvaccinated children the options to home-school their children together or to seek out independent study.

Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, on Monday acknowledged fears some parents have about giving vaccines to their children. But Levine said “science doesn’t support those fears.”

“It’s incredibly important for parents to make decisions that protect all of our children in society, and when parents want to opt out of that social compact, it has negative consequences and repercussions for all of our children,” Levine said.

A spokeswoman for McGuire on Monday confirmed the senator’s support for the measure but said McGuire was not available for comment.

Assemblyman Bill Dodd, D-Napa, has not taken a position on the bill, according to a statement emailed by a spokesman.

Political observers expect SB 277 to advance out of the Judiciary Committee Tuesday. The measure still faces a long road before reaching Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @deadlinederek.