Mobilizing for the Nonmedical Exemptions Bill

Abstract This chapter explains how a network of California parents and civil society organizations worked with elected officials to eliminate nonmedical exemptions. Parent activists responded to outbreaks in their communities by mobilizing against the permissive attitude that California’s government took toward vaccine refusal. After the Disneyland measles outbreak of 2014, pro-vaccine parents contacted Dr. Richard Pan, a California state senator who had led successful efforts to limit California’s nonmedical exemptions in 2012. Pan encouraged parents to be the public face of his new campaign to eliminate nonmedical exemptions. Their organization, Vaccinate California, lobbied for Pan’s new bill and recruited other parents to their movement. Along with health and medical civil society organizations, Vaccinate California shepherded a bill to eliminate nonmedical exemptions, Senate Bill 277, through California’s legislature.