On Tuesday, Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed into law a requirement that聽nearly all children be vaccinated in order to attend school.
With the stroke of a pen, California went from being a state with relatively lax vaccination rules to one of the most strict in the country 鈥� joining Mississippi and West Virginia as states where even are not allowed.聽As the聽bill worked its way through the legislative process, it faced聽strong, consistent, vocal opposition from some parents, including a small group of protesters聽who stood vigil outside the Capitol in Sacramento for days before it was clear Brown would sign the bill.
The protesters are passionate, inflamed mainly by discredited beliefs聽that vaccines are linked to autism. But opposition to vaccines is far from new.
鈥淔rom the moment the very first vaccine came on the scene, which was the smallpox vaccine, there has been resistance to vaccines and vaccination,鈥� says Elena Conis, a history professor at Emory University and author of Vaccine Nation: America鈥檚 Changing Relationship with Immunization.
She says that the modern-day resistance movement shares its roots and rhetoric with the social movements of the 1960s and 鈥�70s, including feminism, environmentalism and consumer rights. 鈥淭hey encouraged people to question sources of authority, including doctors,鈥� Conis says.
For example, women鈥檚 advocates started to question medical advice on reproductive health and childbirth. 鈥淲omen also started opting to increasingly use midwives, have births outside the hospital,鈥� she says, 鈥渁nd also reject professional advice about formula feeding over breastfeeding.鈥�
Environmental activists were also encouraging people to think about chemical exposures, even in small amounts, at the same time that drug manufacturers started including package inserts listing drug ingredients. Conis says that this is the context for the list of vaccine recommendations, which has over the last generation.
It can be overwhelming for today鈥檚 parents to watch their babies cry through one shot after another. 鈥淲e started looking at the vaccine schedule and how intense and frequent these vaccines seem to come up,鈥� says George McCann, a general contractor and father of two daughters, who lives north of San Francisco. 鈥淪o we started talking about whether or not this seemed to be the best approach for our children.鈥�
He and his wife decided to have their girls get some vaccines, but not all. They skipped vaccines for pneumonia and chicken pox and waited on polio until the girls were older. 鈥淭he whole issue for me comes down to the idea that somehow the state would get to mandate that all of us have to do something, as if we don鈥檛 have the ability to look into this with compassion and intelligence and critical thinking on behalf of our children,鈥� he explains.
But Carl Krawitt asks that those who don鈥檛 vaccinate or delay think about other people鈥檚 children. His son for five years while he was being treated for leukemia. He depended on others to be immunized so they couldn鈥檛 spread potentially deadly diseases.
鈥淧eople often don鈥檛 understand that their choices have an impact on others,鈥� he says. 鈥淧eople take personal freedoms to such an extreme that they forget about the community.鈥�
These are the types of parental debates Dr. Matt Willis is navigating. He鈥檚 the public health officer for Marin County. In some communities there, only half the kids are fully vaccinated. His office is trying to figure out why.
It did a survey and found a few common characteristics of today鈥檚 parents who don鈥檛 vaccinate. 鈥淎 higher proportion are getting information from the Internet, and a higher number of the parents were seeing alternative medical providers,鈥� he says.
Willis has developed a list of talking points for each vaccine. He tells parents that there鈥檚 no link between the measles vaccine and autism. He says that polio is probably his toughest sell. The disease was eradicated from the United States in the late 1970s, so American parents today have no memory of how horrible the disease was.
While the polio virus is not endemic to the U.S., he reminds parents that it still is in other parts of the world. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really just one plane ride away,鈥� he says.
Willis tell parents who want to delay some vaccines to think of them like a seat belt. 鈥淵ou could choose to put them in their safety belt as you leave your driveway and start driving, or you could choose to pull over 10 miles later and put it on,鈥� he says.
The law Brown signed on Tuesday will take effect fully in July 2016. Willis welcomes it.
鈥淚t will certainly make my job a lot easier,鈥� he says, because controlling a disease outbreak is like fighting a fire. 鈥淚t鈥檚 much easier to prevent a fire from happening in the first place than it is to try and extinguish it once it鈥檚 spreading.鈥�
This story is part of a reporting partnership with , and Kaiser Health News.