About 200 opponents of California’s new law mandating vaccination for nearly all the state’s schoolchildren protested at the Golden Gate Bridge on Friday, wearing bright red and vowing, “We’re not going away.”
The protest took place three days after Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 277. The law requires immunization against diseases including measles and whooping cough in order to attend public or private school.
Before the bill passed, parents could cite personal or religious beliefs to decline vaccination. Some medical problems, such as immune system deficiencies, will still be exempt under the new law.
“We are large, we are powerful and we are going to be heard,” said event organizer Brandy Vaughan of the Council for Vaccine Safety during the rally. Adults, children and even one German Shepherd dog wore bright red T-shirts, many of them emblazoned with anti-vaccine slogans and images of syringes.
“All of the nation of Islam are sincerely concerned about any law that imposes needles into the arms of men, women and children,” said Minister Keith Muhammad, an official speaker at the event and a local student representative of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the religious group Nation of Islam, in Oakland.
“Autism in black children increased with the MMR,” Muhammad said, referring to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.
Vaccine, autism
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and 11 other co-authors published a study in The Lancet, a respected medical journal, suggesting a link between this vaccine and autism. Subsequently, the study was retracted by The Lancet and Wakefield’s medical license was revoked.
“Study after study has not found a link between vaccines and autism,” Marin Public Health Officer Matt Willis said at a March vaccination forum in San Rafael held by Marin’s public health department, the Marin County Office of Education and Kaiser Permanente.
“The incidence of measles in California is very small and many of those who suffered were vaccinated,” Muhammad said. The speaker was referring to an outbreak of measles that started in Disneyland in December and eventually sickened more than 140 people.
Of the California measles cases reported in January in which vaccination status was known, 80 percent weren’t vaccinated, according to Dr. Gil Chavez, state epidemiologist.
“The majority of people who got measles were unvaccinated,” according to the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The assertion was referring to the 178 measles cases reported in the United States between Jan. 1 and June 26 of this year.
“Are you ready to fight for your rights?” asked Rachelle Emery, who lobbied against the bill. The crowd roared back, “Yes!”
Emery called for “an investigation of our legislators,” specifically Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, a pediatrician and an author of the bill.
Joshua Coleman of Roseville, who lobbied in Sacramento against SB 277, said, “We need to recall Senator Richard Pan.” He also urged the audience to educate the public on the issue.
“Is not injecting poison into a child, child abuse? Think about this!” Donald Harte, a Corte Madera chiropractor, told the group.
Procession
After the speakers held forth, the group marched across the bridge, carrying signs with slogans such as ”No forced vaccination,” and, “In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place” — Mahatma Gandhi.”
A wagon with a bright red canopy holding three children was part of the procession. Two of the children belonged to Megan Fleming.
“I have a background in Ayurvedic medicine and I read a lot of studies on holistic healing modalities before I had children,” the Mill Valley resident said.
“I had a different perspective of what it means to create health. I did my research. I had an instinct that I did not want to just go along with what I was being told,” Fleming said.
“Medical choice is a human right. One of the issues with this is that vaccine studies are done by the companies that manufacture the vaccines. It would be good to have independent studies,” Fleming said.
Drug testing
SB 277 opponent Ona Lesassier of Mill Valley, who has one child, said, “It’s hard to get factual information. There is a high rate of vaccine injury and unknowns on how vaccines affect the autoimmune and nervous systems. In general, vaccines are not held to the same standard of testing as other drugs by the (Food and Drug Administration).
“Drug companies have no liability. Only one company makes the MMR. So all the risk is shouldered by parents, kids, families, and all the benefits go to pharmaceutical companies,” Lesassier said.
Health officials on Thursday confirmed the country’s first measles death since 2003, saying the victim was most likely exposed to the virus in a health facility in Washington state during an outbreak there.
“The person who died from measles was vaccinated,” Muhammad said.
The woman had several other health conditions and was on medications that contributed to a suppressed immune system, according to the Washington State Department of Health.
The woman’s case has parallels with that of Rhett Krawitt.
The 7-year-old Corte Madera resident is a leukemia survivor. For a year after his leukemia treatments, he couldn’t be vaccinated because his immune system was compromised. Fearing for his son, the boy’s father, Carl Krawitt, launched a crusade to ban children who haven’t been fully vaccinated against measles from Marin schools.
If Rhett had been exposed to someone with measles, as was the woman in Washington state, the disease could have severely affected his treatment or even led to his death.
