Doctors Are Selling Vaccine Exemptions in California. The State Is Coming for Them.

[brooklynite]

Source: Vox

California Democrats are taking a new approach to crack down on anti-vaxxers: by going after the doctors selling them phony exemptions.

The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 276, would require any doctor who writes five or more exemptions in a year to undergo review by the health department. And if those exemptions aren’t found to be “true, accurate, and complete,” according to the text of the bill, the doctors could be charged with perjury, which could put their medical licenses at risk.

Introduced by Democratic state senator and doctor Richard Pan, the bill passed the Assembly’s Committee on Health Thursday 9-2 and now goes to the appropriations committee next week.

“California charging doctors with perjury for writing fraudulent exemptions is unique," said Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Hastings and an expert on vaccination law. "No other state is going after phony doctors other than California, but this is partly because most states have other options — like religious or personal belief exemptions — or already have reviews of medical exemptions in place.”

Read more: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xqb5/doctors-are-selling-vaccine-exemptions-in-california-the-state-is-coming-for-them

[hlthe2b]

1. GOOD!!!! n/t

[Initech]

2. Fuck anti-vaxxers!!!

[Beakybird]

4. Anti-vaxxers should get shots!

[still_one]

3. Good

[pnwmom]

5. The real problem hasn't been medical exemptions -- which only about 1% of California children have.

The real problem was letting parents have a philosophical objection to vaccines.

[Aristus]

6. I had a parent once try to shake me down for a non-allergy exemption for her kid.

I sent her packing pretty quickly. Take that shit somewhere else!...

[3catwoman3]

7. Our practice is in the process of informing families...

...that if they do not wish to immunize, “Failure to agree to our vaccine policy will require you to transfer your care to a healthcare provider who shares your views.” We are part of an 11 practice consortium, and all 11 are going to be implementing this.

I don’t know how soon they are going to start dismissing people. There are going to be some pretty pissed off folks, as we have been fairly accommodating until now.

Also, we now have insurance companies deciding that they will not re-imburse certain immunizations unless these are accomplished by times that THEY decide are proper. This far, those include Hepatitis A completed by 23 months and Gardasil (HPV) by age 13. I emphatically do not think the insurance companies should be “calling the shots,” so to speak on immunizations that have a broader time table than they prefer.