SB 276: California Passes New Restrictive Vaccine Laws… Who’s Really Calling the Shots?

Last night citizens held a candlelight vigil outside the California State Capitol. Parents, teachers, and children continued a demonstration against California Senate Bills 276 and 714, both of which will enact drastic and oppressive changes to vaccination requirements. Protests continued throughout the day on Friday and show no signs of slowing down.

On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed both bills into law after majority approval by both the Senate and the Assembly. Protestors stood on chairs and shouted from the balconies signaling the beginning of what has been a week-long demonstration. Activists shut down both chambers of the California state legislature, filling the halls and creating a human barrier around the government buildings. A number of protesters were arrested.

Watch the vigil live by clicking on the video below.

Our staff have been on the ground, interviewing protestors and witnessing the movement first-hand, while our research team has reached out to several activists and politicians for comment. Supporters of the bill believe that it will curb unnecessary exemptions and provide a higher level of immunity for school children. Opponents believe that the new legislation infringes on medical freedom, violates patient privacy, and puts children in harm’s way.

Watch the video below to hear one mother’s journey after her son was vaccine damaged.

The bill was written and championed by State Senator Richard Pan, and only allowed exemptions based on contraindications (a reason for the drug to not be used) and precautions provided by the CDC. Due to public outcry, the bill was amended to give physicians complete and sole discretion to issue medical exemptions.

This was enough to ensure that the SB 277 passed, and although the bill represented further erosion of our medical freedom, there was some comfort in the knowledge that our doctors could still ultimately decide if forced vaccination was necessary.

And the authority of these doctors was not in question. Here is a transcript from a 2015 Assembly Committee Hearing on SB 277:

(Assembly Member) Rob Bonta:

And then finally, we have an amendment regarding the medical exemption and a physician’s judgement. And I’ve heard from a number of constituents and Californians regarding concerns that a medical exemption is difficult to obtain or was difficult to obtain. I believe that current law states that a physician has complete, professional discretion over the writing of a medical exemption. However, I have asked the author to take an amendment to clarify that a medical exemption is entirely within the professional judgement of a physician and we have agreement on that amendment.”

Richard Pan:

Yes.”

And yet, less than 3 years after SB 277 took effect, State Senator Richard Pan introduced Senate Bill 276 (SB 276), which will do 3 things:

1. Give sole power to grant medical exemptions to government officials. These officials will not be required to see the patient or have any medical training.
2. Restrict the awarding of medical exemptions to only those who fall within the stringent CDC guidelines. The state will have the power to revoke exemptions granted previously under SB277.
3. Create and maintain a database of all medical exemptions. Since the state health department is not a medical establishment, it will not be prohibited from disclosing this information or sharing it with other government entities.

There have been many protests and petitions opposed to this bill, and initial reluctance by Governor Newsom indicated that he may veto the bill, even if passed. Instead, State Senator Pan created SB 714 in order to acquiesce Newsom’s demands. Unfortunately for opponents of SB 276, the addendum simply gives students with existing exemptions until the next school year to comply. It also removes the requirement that the statewide form be signed under penalty of perjury and modifies which physicians and surgeons are eligible to issue a medical exemption.

Under current laws, California doctors may issue a medical exemption for any child that had a medical reason for skipping the vaccines. Doctor discretion varied widely and was not restricted to the stringent CDC guidelines. But many doctors, including Dr. Kenneth Stoller, were persecuted for issuing “too many” medical exemptions. In May, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced that he was investigating Dr. Kenneth Stoller for allegedly writing fraudulent medical exemptions for mandatory childhood vaccinations.

He followed the announcement with a subpoena asking Dr. Stoller to surrender private patient medical records for any of his patients seeking a medical exemption, citing “state nuisance” laws. Dr. Stoller fought back, protecting both his authority as a physician and the privacy rights of his patients. But SB 276 will change all that.

It seems apparent that the bill was designed for the dual purposes of 1) transferring exemption authority from doctors to the state and 2) creating a vaccination database to track the records of all Californians.

Here is an excerpt from the bill:

This bill would instead require the State Department of Public Health, by January 1, 2021, to develop and make available for use by licensed physicians and surgeons an electronic, standardized, statewide medical exemption request that would be transmitted using the California Immunization Registry (CAIR), and which, commencing January 1, 2021, would be the only documentation of a medical exemption that a governing authority may accept. The bill would specify the information to be included in the medical exemption form, including a certification under penalty of perjury that the statements and information contained in the form are true, accurate, and complete. The bill would, commencing January 1, 2021, require a physician and surgeon to inform a parent or guardian of the bill’s requirements and to examine the child and submit a completed medical exemption request form to the department, as specified. By expanding the crime of perjury, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

This bill would require a parent or guardian, by January 1, 2021, to submit to the department a copy of a medical exemption granted prior to that date for inclusion in a state database in order for the medical exemption to remain valid. The bill would require the department to annually review immunization reports from schools and institutions to identify schools with an overall immunization rate of less than 95%, physicians and surgeons who submitted 5 or more medical exemption forms in a calendar year, and schools and institutions that do not report immunization rates to the department. The bill would require a clinically trained department staff member who is a physician and surgeon or a registered nurse to review all medical exemption forms submitted meeting those conditions. The bill would authorize the medical exemptions determined by that staff member to be inappropriate or otherwise invalid to be reviewed by the State Public Health Officer or a physician and surgeon designated by the State Public Health Officer, and revoked by the State Public Health Officer or physician and surgeon designee, under prescribed circumstances.”

To summarize, all medical exemptions must be submitted to the California Immunization Registry (CAIR), an online database tracking all vaccine exemptions. The bill would also require that the state health department review these exemptions for validity, with the authority to revoke doctor-written exemptions. Even worse, the bill would require that any schools reporting vaccination rates less than 95% – or any doctors writing more than 5 exemptions a year – be investigated.

The Real Issues with SB 276 and the “Measles Epidemic”

Here are the three major problems with this bill:

First, no parent should be forced to inject their child with a drug that is known to cause severe adverse reactions, including death. Despite the liberal mantra of “your body, your choice,” lawmakers have been contradictory when it comes to children’s safety. A recent increase in measles has been the rallying cry behind the legislation. But what’s the truth?

From 1959-1962 – just before the vaccine was introduced – measles was fatal in only 0.01% of cases. And while the number of unvaccinated children has quadrupled since 2001, from 2000-2016 measles deaths decreased by 84%. But there are other factors at play when it comes to the dangers of measles.

Malnutrition, especially vitamin A deficiency, is a primary cause of about 90,000 measles deaths annually in underdeveloped nations. In the U.S. and other developed countries, up to 92% of hospitalized measles patients are low in vitamin A. Better nutrition and hygiene may explain the decline in measles mortality even before the vaccine existed.

And the numbers that are used to scare us into submission are not numbers that you can trust. About 90% of measles cases are benign and go unreported, meaning that reported cases of measles only constitute about 10% of all cases.

Using reported cases to calculate mortality rates results in numbers that are artificially inflated by a factor of 10.

Mayor de Blasio, Merck, and the CDC would have you believe that we are in the midst of an epidemic crisis. After all, there have been over 450 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S. this year alone. They’d have you believe that your freedom to choose what goes into your body – and even your constitutional right to religious freedom – must be forfeited in order to save the children. How many must die?

Since the turn of the millennium, there have been 11 deaths from measles in the U.S. To put that in perspective, here are some unique death rates in the U.S. from 1999-2014:

• Deaths from contact with powered lawn mower: 951
• Deaths from a fall involving ice skates, skis, roller skates or skateboards: 1,139
• Deaths from a fall from tree: 1,413
• Deaths from a fall involving bed: 10,386

You are 1,038.6 times more likely to die falling out of bed than from measles.

In 2017 alone, 16 Americans died from lightning strikes – more than those who have died from measles in the last 20 years. In fact, according to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), you’re more likely to die from the MMR vaccine than you are from measles.

While the mortality from measles in the U.S. remains virtually non-existent, the risks of receiving untested vaccines for which the manufacturers are not liable are robust.

Serious complications reported by Merck in the ProQuad product insert include:

• measles
• atypical measles
• vaccine strain varicella
• varicella-like rash
• herpes zoster
• herpes simplex
• pneumonia and respiratory infection
• pneumonitis
• bronchitis
• epididymitis
• cellulitis
• skin infection
• subacute sclerosing panencephalitis
• aseptic meningitis
• thrombocytopenia
• aplastic anemia (anemia due to the bone marrow’s inability to produce platelets, red and white blood cells)
• lymphadenitis (inflammation of the lymph nodes)
• anaphylaxis including related symptoms of peripheral, angioneurotic and facial edema
• agitation
• ocular palsies
• necrotizing retinitis (inflammation of the eye)
• nerve deafness
• optic and retrobulbar neuritis (inflammation of the optic nerve)
• Bell’s palsy (sudden but temporary weakness of one half of the face)
• cerebrovascular accident (stroke)
• acute disseminated encephalomyelitis
• measles inclusion body encephalitis
• transverse myelitis
• encephalopathy
• Guillain-Barré syndrome
• syncope (fainting)
• tremor
• dizziness
• paraesthesia
• febrile seizure
• afebrile seizures or convulsions
• polyneuropathy (dysfunction of numerous peripheral nerves of the body)
• Stevens-Johnson syndrome
• Henoch-Schönlein purpura
• acute hemorrhagic edema of infancy
• erythema multiforme
• panniculitis
• arthritis
• death

The risks of serious adverse reactions may be relatively low, but when the possible side effects of the measles vaccine include measles, all the symptoms of measles, and death, you have to wonder why anyone would risk injecting their child.

The following are the CDC guidelines for issuing a medical exemption for the MMR vaccine:

• Allergies to the MMR vaccine or any of its ingredients. (The CDC recommends the first dose of MMR at 12 months.)
• Anyone who is pregnant. (It is also recommended that women not become pregnant for at least 1 month after receiving an MMR vaccine.)
• Anyone with a weakened immune system.
• Anyone with a family history of immune system problems.
• Anyone with a condition that makes them bruise or bleed easily.
• Anyone who’s recently had a blood transfusion.
• Anyone with tuberculosis.
• Anyone who has received another vaccine in the last 4 weeks.
• Anyone who is not feeling well.

But few children, if any, know if they’re allergic to the ingredients in the MMR vaccine at 12 months old. Injecting your child with these vaccines is like playing Russian roulette with their health, and State Senator Pan wants to make sure you can’t opt out. And why? Because he’s beholden to the pharmaceutical industry, just like many of our lawmakers and regulatory authorities.

SB 277 wasn’t a misguided crusade by a well-meaning legislator; it was a coordinated effort by the pharmaceutical industry to make sure every child receives their product.

According to the Sacramento Bee, the pharmaceutical industry spent roughly $3 million on lobbying efforts during the 2013-2014 legislative session. What’s more, they donated over $2 million to members of the legislature during that time and more than $500,000 to outside groups that had campaigned for them.

Senator Pan received the lion’s share of the pharma donations to the tune of nearly $100,000. Not bad for a state senator. Toni Atkins, the speaker of the California State Assembly at the time and now President pro tempore of the State Senate, received more than $90,000 in cash donations from the pharmaceutical industry.

One of the biggest issues with vaccine safety is a lack of research. While most drugs spend months or even years in testing, vaccines can be approved in as little as a few days. There are no control groups, since each vaccine is tested against an older version of the same vaccine. And the side effects listed on the insert often contain all the same symptoms as the disease itself, making it impossible to prove efficacy.

What may be worse is that each vaccine is still considered to be in a clinical stage, as adverse reactions continue to be reported and tracked after the vaccine is introduced.

Most product inserts for vaccines have the following warning:

Because clinical trials are conducted under widely varying conditions, adverse reaction rates observed in the clinical trials of a vaccine cannot be directly compared to rates in the clinical trials of another vaccine and may not reflect the rates observed in practice.”

New vaccines are routinely tested against confirmed dangerous ones in order to arrive at what appear to be positive outcomes. Without a control group, these studies are incapable of accurately measuring the frequency and causal relationships of the vaccines they study.

Additionally, manufacturers in the U.S. are relieved of any liability for injury or death resulting from their products. Plaintiffs are not able to sue the manufacturer for damages but are instead required to go through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), in which victims end up suing their own government in a specially appointed court.

The lack of adequate studies makes it hard for plaintiffs to prove that vaccine manufacturers are at fault. And as long as the manufacturer isn’t aware of any harmful effects, they retain immunity against legal action. This has resulted in a system in which it is in the company’s best interest NOT to conduct thorough safety studies.

We need to demand a higher standard for these drugs. Safety testing needs to be commensurate with the rest of the pharmaceutical world, manufacturers need to be held liable for selling harmful, unsafe drugs to patients, and we need to get money out of the process.

Merck generated $1.8 billion in revenue last year from just the MMR vaccine. This is despite the fact that the number of unvaccinated children has nearly quadrupled in the last 20 years. There’s just too much money to be made and it has a direct effect on public policy.

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These companies often sponsor their own studies. They spend millions of dollars each year lobbying the government, and their relationship with leaders in our regulatory bodies is sickening. We need to demand that these companies be held accountable. We need to demand that our representatives stop taking money from the pharmaceutical companies, and that regulators not be allowed to take jobs with the very companies they’re meant to regulate.

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out over $4 billion dollars to those injured by vaccines. This is despite the absurd rules of this “kangaroo court” that make it nearly impossible for victims to even have their case heard. Even here, we’ve seen how doctors’ expert testimony has been twisted and misrepresented to benefit the manufacturers and deny compensation for victims.

This is not acceptable in a free society. Manufacturers need to run better safety studies with real control groups. They need to be accountable for the damage caused by their own products. And they need to stop waving money in the face of every politician, scientist, and regulator they can find. If we stop letting the inmates run the prison, we may see real change in the way vaccines are developed, tested, and approved.

Second, the state should not be permitted to overrule physicians when it comes to patient care. With cancer, dental procedures, antibiotics, or surgery, patients have the right to seek out a doctor that can help create a treatment plan that’s right for them. This is especially important when it comes to our children – parents are responsible for making decisions about medical intervention.

But doctors who go against the status quo are routinely villainized. SB 276 wants to take the decision away from doctors and give final authority to the state. And it’s no surprise; patients routinely seek second, third, or even fourth opinions until they find a doctor who will work with them. We see this in cancer treatment all the time.

The vaccine industry and their political allies are attempting to discredit legitimate medical exemptions and illegally access patient information. SB 277 clearly granted sole discretion to physicians when it comes to vaccine exemptions.

After all, your medical care should be between you and your doctor – NOT the government. But State Senator Pan has gone against every promise he made upon the passage of SB 277.

Under the new law, doctors will have to provide a detailed reason for their decision to grant an exemption. State health authorities will have the exclusive right to revoke these exemptions, which means that your doctor’s decision is meaningless if it goes against State Senator Pan’s standards. Given the money he’s received from the industry, it’s no wonder that he is doing everything in his power to remove doctor authority.

It is a tragic day when Americans are no longer allowed to make decisions for their health and the health of their families. Perhaps the most oppressive part of this bill is its requirement that all vaccine exemptions be entered into a state database – and that doctors and schools allowing too many exemptions be investigated.

We’ve seen these kinds of tactics implemented before, and they end with armed law enforcement knocking on your door. Which brings me to the last major issue with this bill.

The State Wants to Track Your Medical Information

Finally, an electronic database is a violation of patient privacy – and we’ve already seen how this can be used for gestapo-like coercion. Earlier this year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency due to the increased incidence of measles in Brooklyn. At 10:30 this morning, Mayor de Blasio tweeted the following:

Unvaccinated children in the zip codes of 11205, 11206, 11221 and 11249 may not return to school or daycare for the duration of this outbreak. If you choose to not vaccinate, you will be fined. We have to protect our kids and our families.”

The reported cases of measles were primarily limited to the Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. According to Reuters, anyone who has not received the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine will face a fine up to $1,000.

The NYC Department of Health will be using electronic health records to locate unvaccinated citizens of all ages and compel them to receive the vaccination – or pay the price.

“It was time to take a more muscular approach. The faster everyone heeds the order, the faster we can lift it,” said de Blasio. But lifting a mandate only once everyone has complied hardly equates to freedom.

Thomas Jefferson said that “The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.” He also stated that he “Consider[s] the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”

But State Senator Pan doesn’t care about religious freedom. He doesn’t even care if a doctor agrees with your concerns about vaccination. He wants to make sure that your children receive every vaccine possible, no matter the cost.

Once California enacts this law, the government will have access to virtually every exemption record in the state. And while the bill doesn’t outline any forced vaccinations, how long will it be until a new “health emergency” has police knocking down your door and forcing your children to be vaccinated? It’s happened before.

And the tech industry, which was born and raised in California, is complicit. Amazon recently became HIPPA certified and has partnered with several major health companies to track and record your medical information. (But there is no official certification process for becoming HIPAA compliant. There is no official “Good Housekeeping seal of approval” or formal process to prove that someone is now HIPAA compliant. Rather, it is a self-implemented process, and there is no agency that certifies whether a company is actually following HIPAA.)

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, now owns two pharmaceutical companies. Coincidentally(?), they have also made recent algorithm changes to make sites questioning conventional medicine and vaccines virtually invisible. They aren’t alone, as companies like Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, and GoFundMe have all implemented similar censorship.

California wants you to be vaccinated. And they want to track you if you aren’t. We’ve written about the international movement to force mandatory vaccines, and this is just another step in that direction.

But there is something we can do. Lots of things, in fact. Here’s a more in-depth article on how you can advocate for medical freedom. You can also contact California State Assembly Members here. If you want to send a letter to representatives, you can access our free template here. You can also share this information with everyone you know so that we can increase our voice.

But when it comes to SB 276, there are some who are leading the fight – and they need your help.

Before SB 276 was signed into law, three brave freedom fighters stood on chairs and literally brought the assembly to a standstill. As soon as the bill was passed, Tara Thornton, Denise Aguilar, and Heidi Munoz Gleisner filed referenda on Wednesday to overturn it.

Filing the referendum is the first step in letting the American people decide if they want to tolerate this kind of oppression. If successful, the petition would appear on the California ballot this November, allowing the voters to overturn SB 276. They only need one thing: signatures.

To qualify for the 2020 ballot, each referendum will need 623,212 valid signatures from registered voters. They need all the help they can get, and I want to ask YOU to help them. Since the beginning, Ty and I have made it our life’s mission to spread the truth and protect the innocent. We’ve been blessed with a large online audience and countless personal connections. We need you now.

State Senator Pan’s spokeswoman, Shannan Velayas, said that the protests are “moving from a peculiar fringe curiosity to a violent extremist movement.” We believe that kind of language echoes the sentiments of the 43 Assembly members and 27 State Senators who voted to pass the bill. Villainize us. Silence us. Control us.

But we are well over a million strong. Our voices are loud and unashamed. We can stop this law from passing.

All we need are 623,212 signatures. We will update this article on how to sign the petition once we have more details.

In the mean time, be sure to follow Freedom Angels on Facebook to stay updated. Conscience Coalition is also very active in this protest.

We always recommend giving to RFK’s Children’s Health Defense to support the legal battles as well as any local Medical Freedom group (like freedom angels) that is actively involved.

Call your friends.

Post online. Make some ruckus.

Our children are counting on us.

Vaccinating your child is one of the most important decisions a parent can make. That’s why we created The Truth About Vaccines – giving you all the data and scientific facts about vaccines today from the world’s leading experts.