I get asked that alot these days. But, as I have said repeatedly in these posts, I can’t answer each family’s specific question about this, not even the families who have exemptions written by Ken Stoller (who I represent). So again, I won’t be answering any of your calls or messages about your child’s specific circumstances.

Aside from my inability to deal with the shear volume of families who have questions, the reason I can’t answer specific questions or offer a legal opinion about specific cases is: 1. The new law has some vagueness in it and more importantly, 2. Regardless of what the law says, – even when it is clear – it is not clear to me that the schools will follow the law.

That being said, here is what I know to be the case about the new law:

If your child is not changing a grade span (entering a new check point) and is staying in the same school, your child’s medical exemption should continue to be technically valid next school year.

But there is a big caveat/exception:

If the physician who has written the medical exemption is under a medical board disciplinary order (roughly speaking), and the department of public health finds out about the exemption, the exemption can be revoked. I assume, (but do not know for sure) that the revocation will be automatic based solely on the physician’s disciplinary status and will not require the revocation procedure set forth in the statute. But as stated, I am not sure, because the statute is not clear about this.

Right now, I think there are only one or two California licensed doctors under board order, and I would expect every exemption that those physicians have written will be revoked after the public health department learns about the exemption. The board is currently investigating many, if not most of the physicians around the state who have written the majority of medical exemptions.

No one knows how these cases will shake out, but my educated guess is that the board will try to put all of these doctors under a board order, so that all their medical exemptions can eventually be automatically revoked by the department of public health. In the next year or two, I would expect that other physicians will be put under board order, so I would expect the list of physicians whose exemptions can be revoked will increase.

How will the department of public health find out about grandfathered exemptions in 2020 and beyond, since SB 714 eliminated the CAIR reporting of these exemptions?

Two ways: I suspect many public schools will send all their students’ medical exemptions of otherwise healthy children to the state public health department, because I think most public schools do not want unvaccinated healthy but “medically fragile” children in their schools.

Second, I think the county public health department offices will go around to the schools and request to see the vaccine exemption records, despite the fact that it is not technically legal to do so absent very specific circumstances which do not normally exist.

My gut tells me that the state department of health under the direction of Charity Dean already has a plan for discovery all of these medical exemptions, and that we are in the early stages of implementation, with more serious efforts coming in 2020. But this is just my best guess based on some of the things I am hearing around the state from different sources.

Beyond the ability to revoke medical exemptions issued by physicians under board discipline, the department of public health has the ability to rescind exemptions that do not comply with the new law, meaning exemptions beyond CDC guidelines adapted by the various lettered organizations and consensus statements. However, that power appears to be limited to exemption letters written in 2020, and exemptions forms submitted in 2021 and beyond. It does not apply to pre-2020 exemptions which are commonly described as “grandfathered.” Under the current law, the only way a grandfathered exemption can be revoked is if the exemption writing physician is under board order as discussed above.

What about if your child is changing schools within a grade span? Will the medical exemption still be valid?

I have two things to say about that: First, there is nothing in the new law which states or implies that an exemption for a grade span becomes invalid upon changing schools. That the good news. The bad news is that I am hearing that some public schools are taking the position that exemptions are not valid if the child moves to a new public school. This position is another manifestation of the fact that the vaccine fragile medically exempt are not wanted in the public schools. At some point, this may end up in court, but until then, I would expect this to continue and increase in frequency.

What’s the bottom line?

Let’s compare and contrast the SB 276/714 situation to the implementation of SB 277’s removal of the PBE (personal belief exemption). There are still families who have valid PBEs because their children are still in the same grade span when these pre 2016 PBEs were filed. Other than entering a new checkpoint/ grade span, there was no way for the public health department to cancel a PBE.

Now, grandfathered medical exemptions can (and will) be revoked if the exemption writing physician is or goes under a board disciplinary order. More physicians will come under board order in the future, so many more exemptions will be subject to being revoked, and the public schools and the county public health departments will make sure that all of the exemptions written by the disciplined physicians find their way to the public health department (or the public schools on their own will simply reject these exemptions).

But even beyond that, public schools are starting to reject or not honor medical exemptions for the vaccine fragile, which actions I think will continue and increase. How long this process will take for any specific exemption to be rejected/revoked is impossible to say. But my guess is that the majority of grandfathered vaccine fragile based medical exemptions will eventually be revoked for kids in the early part of a grade span. So many or most of these families will need another plan, if they want to continue to decline vaccination. Right now, the only two options are home schooling and moving to another state. Of course, things could change, but the above is the most likely outcome, as I see it right now.

Rick Jaffe, Esq.