Two California state lawmakers are seeking to strengthen California's vaccine laws by eliminating an exemption based on personal beliefs.
The bill proposed Wednesday comes as dozens of people have fallen ill from a measles outbreak that started at Disneyland.
Democratic Sens. Richard Pan, a Sacramento doctor, and Ben Allen, a former Santa Monica school board member, proposed legislation Wednesday to change a state law that allows parents to opt out of vaccines based on personal belief if they see a medical professional first.
The legislation would allow exemptions only for medical reasons. But Pan said he would consider adding an exemption for religious beliefs, as the current law allows.
Most states allow exemptions for personal or religious beliefs. Only Mississippi and West Virginia restrict exemptions to medical issues.
As of Tuesday, California had 93 confirmed cases of measles, including 28 in Orange County and 21 in Los Angeles County but none on any Los Angeles Unified School District campus, state and local health officials said.
The Disneyland outbreak has spread well beyond the theme parks that attract tens of thousands of visitors from around the globe, who could then return home with the virus. Disease investigators for weeks raced to identify measles-stricken patients, track down potential contacts and quarantine them if necessary.
Public health experts say success at containing the outbreak will largely depend on how many unvaccinated people get the measles shot.
"This was a wake-up call," said Dr. James Cherry, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of California, Los Angeles. "It could continue to smolder" if not enough people get vaccinated.
The California outbreak probably began when an infected person spread the illness to a handful of mostly unvaccinated people, who then exposed many others.
Both measles and whopping cough can be prevented through vaccinations. Since the Disneyland measles outbreak, parents who refuse vaccines for their children on religious or philosophical grounds have been on the defensive against a tide of doctors and public-health officials urging people to get the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine.
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The issue has stirred sometimes-angry debates and even entered the realm of presidential politics.
Measles is extremely contagious and is spread by air through coughing and sneezing. Symptoms include fever, runny nose and telltale rash all over the body. The disease is particularly dangerous to pregnant women, people with weak immune systems and babies who are too young to receive the shot.
There is "some hope that we will get ahead of the outbreak in the near future" Los Angeles County interim health officer, Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, told county board supervisors Tuesday at a hearing. But there is "still work to be done."
