SF Gate News By Bob Egelko Posted Sat., Night, Aug.27, 2016
A federal judge refused Friday to block California’s new vaccination law, which requires children in public and private schools to be inoculated against 10 contagious illnesses and eliminates an exemption based on their parents’ personal beliefs.
“Society has a compelling interest in fighting the spread of contagious diseases through mandatory vaccination of school-age children,” U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw of San Diego said in denying an injunction against enforcement of the law, sought by 17 parents and four antivaccine organizations.
The right to freely practice one’s religion, one of the rights invoked by opponents of the new law, “does not outweigh the state’s interest in public health and safety,” Sabraw said.
California is one of three states that require all schoolchildren to be vaccinated …regardless of their parents’ religious or personal opposition. The only exceptions are for students with doctor-certified medical exemptions and for disabled students in individual education programs.
While the law says that all children must be vaccinated, it requires parents to provide immunization records only when a student is entering kindergarten or the seventh grade.
That means an elementary-school student with a previous parental exemption does not need to be vaccinated until the seventh grade, and students in the eighth grade or higher with a past exemption won’t require any vaccinations.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit say 33,000 students in California whose parents oppose vaccinations are enrolling in either kindergarten or the seventh grade and will be denied enrollment unless they agree to be vaccinated.
State Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, sponsor of the vaccine law, praised the ruling and said that “our schools are already becoming safer” because of the strengthened vaccination requirement.
Attorney Kim Mack Rosenberg said the plaintiffs would appeal. “All children in California deserve to receive the education that is their guaranteed right,” a right they will lose if the vaccination law is enforced, she said.
Full article here: http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/US-judge-upholds-state-law-requiring-vaccinations-9187856.php Via blacklisted news.com