Petition for the reform of California's school immunization exemption laws

We, the undersigned residents and supporters of the State of California, petition our government for the reform of the laws governing immunization exemptions for children enrolled in California schools.

In 2015, Senate Bill 277 eliminated the personal belief exemption, which had until then covered religious conviction as well as other deeply held personal beliefs. In 2019, Senate Bill 276 added a layer of state review over the medical exemption, placing a public health official between a physician and the family that physician serves.

The result is a policy in which a parent with a sincere, considered objection has no lawful pathway in a California public school, and a physician's clinical judgment can be overruled by an administrator. Whatever one believes about any particular medical product, the question of who decides for a child is a question of fundamental governance, and the answer the state has chosen is: the state.

We reject that answer. The responsibility for a child's upbringing, education and medical care rests first with the parent, and the state's proper role is to inform that responsibility, not to displace it.

California's constitution and the First Amendment protect the free exercise of religion. A family whose faith informs how they raise and care for their children should not be required to abandon that conviction as the price of a public education.

We call for the restoration of a religious exemption claimed by written attestation. The state should not sit in judgment of the sincerity of a family's faith, and no official should be empowered to decide which beliefs are sufficiently devout to be honored.

Consent that is compelled is not consent. A parent who has studied the available literature, consulted the clinicians of their choosing, weighed the risks and benefits for their own child, and reached a considered decision is exercising exactly the responsibility the state claims to want.

We call for the restoration of a personal-belief exemption, granted on written acknowledgement rather than bureaucratic approval, so that the deliberative work of parenting is honored rather than overruled.

Medicine is practiced case by case. A physician who has examined a child, reviewed that child's history and reached a clinical conclusion is exercising professional judgment, and that judgment should not be routinely second-guessed by a reviewer who has never met the patient.

We call for medical exemptions to be accepted as clinical decisions, reviewable only where there is a specific, articulable finding of fraud.

A central concern is that a family should be able to raise a medically relevant, individualized concern before an adverse outcome accrues. The petition therefore asks California to ensure that medical exemption discussions can operate preventatively, supported by appropriate medical evidence and professional standards, rather than treating a vaccine injury as a prerequisite to consideration. A system that recognizes harm only after it has occurred has mistaken documentation for prevention.

Laws that reach into every family's medical decisions carry an obligation of candor. The public is entitled to know who funded the advocacy, who advised the agencies, and what evidence was weighed and what evidence was set aside.

We call for full public disclosure of pharmaceutical industry spending directed at California legislators, agencies and school health policy; disclosure of industry affiliations held by members of the boards and advisory bodies that shape these rules; and published data, recorded dissenting views and independent audit for every immunization requirement imposed by a state agency.

Accountability should not run in one direction only. If families must justify their decisions to the state, the state must justify its decisions to the public.

Restore the religious exemption. Restore the personal-belief exemption. Affirm in statute that parents are the primary decision-makers for their children's education and health. Honor the professional judgment of licensed physicians. And require real, public transparency and accountability from the agencies and industries that shape school health policy in California.