Pediatrics<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>written by Senator Richard Pan (California) and a UC Hastings law professor made the claim that \u201cmany students received inappropriate MEs (medical exemptions)\u201d after the passage of SB277 which removed parents’ right to philosophical & religious vaccine exemptions for school attendance in California. One has to wonder, without ever having personally treated any of the children that received a medical exemption, how can this legislator and law professor make such a diagnosis to ascertain their medical conditions do not warrant an exemption?<\/p>\nFor many years, the go-to retort from some pro-mandate legislators against parents requesting vaccine freedom of choice were things like “listen to doctors, not celebrities” or “I’ll trust a doctor’s degree over a mother’s google degree\u201d or simply \u201cI\u2019m pro-science.\u201d Now that philosophical exemptions have been taken away for California public school students, more parents are turning to doctors for medical exemptions so that their children may continue to have access to a public education, and suddenly doctors are no longer the revered experts they once were.<\/p>\n
Legislators were so confident in the stringency of medical exemptions that they assured California parents time and time again that medical exemptions would remain untouched by the legislature – even taking steps to “expand” access to these exemptions. Watch below as Senators Pan and Allen speak to the importance of maintaining a “strong and robust medical exemption” and agree that “a medical professional has complete discretion over the writing of a medical exemption”. In the second video below Senator Pan even states that “there is no specific list of things they (doctors) can or cannot exempt for”:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/KVOJJZijnXo<\/p>\n
Left with no other option, many California parents took Senator Pan at his word and sought to obtain medical exemptions for their children. Also taking Senator Pan at his word that no disciplinary action would be taken against doctors who granted MEs, many were happy to oblige concerned parents and began issuing them at their discretion. As a result, the number of MEs in the state rapidly increased and along with it the cries of “FOUL!” from Senator Pan as he increasingly refers to MEs as “inappropriate”. The video below highlights Senator Pan’s progression from “Doctor knows best” to “Doctors are frauds”:<\/p>\n