Even with the passage of SB 277—a California law that removes all personal and religious vaccination exemptions for schoolchildren—those who oppose the new law aren’t giving up without a fight.
A group of Santa Maria mothers is involved in a statewide effort to get voters to sign a referendum that would “negate the mandatory vaccine law,” according to Candyce Estave, one of the mothers collecting signatures in Santa Maria.
In order for the referendum to reach the ballot for the next California voting cycle, it needs to collect 365,000 signatures by Sept. 28, Estave said.
Estave denies being anti-vaccine, and said the issue is really about her kids being free from excessive vaccines. She compares it to medical experiments.
“It’s against international law to do medical experiments on people,” Estave said. “Their end game is cradle to grave vaccinations.”
Santa Maria mother Michelle Reed Elling, who is also pushing for the referendum, home schools her kids because she knows that she won’t be able to comply with the law.
“What’s frustrating to me is that people think we’re anti-vaccine, but we’re not,” Elling said.
Some of the main reasons for exemptions range from substances contained inside the vaccine—which include heavy metals such as aluminum and mercury that could hurt the patient—to using vaccines that contain fetal tissue, which both Elling and Estave oppose.
But then there are some health professionals who cite research indicating that a lack of vaccinations could equal serious public health consequences.
An outbreak of measles at Disneyland in December 2014 is widely blamed on the lack of measles vaccinations. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 144 were infected but there were no fatalities. Santa Barbara County Public Health Director Dr. Takashi Wada said measles infection is enough to land a person in the hospital.
“These can be potentially serious illnesses,” Wada told the Sun.
In the meantime, Estave and others are organizing a free event with a showing of the documentary film, Trace Amounts, which argues evidence showing that small amounts of mercury is causing autism in children. The event will be held at Shepard Hall at the Santa Maria Public Library on Sept. 19 between 2 and 5 p.m. and will feature Trace Amounts filmmaker Eric Gladen, attorney and legal researcher Travis Middleton, and Vaccine Injury Awareness League founder Michele Ford.
Estave said the event will be broadcasted on the Periscope mobile app.
This article appears in Sep 10-17, 2015.
