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According to a bill introduced Thursday by a California lawmaker , the young people older than 12 years of the state they could make their own decisions and receive the Covid-vaccine 19, without requiring the consent of their parents.
The Senate Bill 866 by Democratic Senator Scott Wiener would allow children of 12 years onwards, even against Covid-19, without the consent or knowledge of their parents.
The bill is the first proposed this year by a group of Democratic lawmakers who have pledged to strengthen vaccination laws and combat misinformation amid the COVID pandemic-19.
“There are many students who would use n this bill,” Ani Chaglasian, a 17-year-old teenager who lives in Glendale, told the Los Angeles Times. and is an ambassador for Teens for Vaccines, an organization that offers advice to teens with parents who are anti-vaccine or skeptical of inoculations. “There are vaccine pop-ups at our school and they could do this without having to deal with the backlash in their families.”
The bill is sure to spark a very familiar feverish debate in Sacramento, overlapping with contentious issues related to the right of parents to make medical decisions for their children.
Changes in school immunization laws have previously led to intense deliberations, prolonged protests and arrests.
Last year, lawmakers said they planned to look into broad exemptions in school Covid vaccination mandates -19 that would allow parents to choose not to vaccinate their children based on their personal beliefs.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced in October that the state would require students in all public schools and received the Covid-vaccine 17, and the mandate will go into effect for grades seven to 12, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fully approves the vaccine for older children of years.
Currently, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is fully approved for use over 16 years of age, and there is an authorization from emergency for ages 5 to 16 years.
However, once the vaccine is fully approved, parents may cite personal beliefs to opt out of vaccinating their children.
For all other immunizations required to attend school in California , state law requires a medical exemption to omit some or all of those immunizations for in-person attendance at K-12.
Legislators have also considered new requirements for vaccines for adults in the workplace, although a bill ultimately failed to materialize last year.
Wiener’s bill is the first to come out of a legislative vaccine task force announced Wednesday that is determining what steps the legislature should take to improve vaccination rates and misinformation.
“This will not be the only bill,” said Wiener .
The SB 866 would allow a child 12 years of age or older consent to receive any vaccine approved by the FDA and recommended by the advisory committee on immunization practices of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That list includes the vaccine against Covid- 19 manufactured by Pfizer, as well as vaccines against influenza, measles, chickenpox and others.
Wiener said the bill fits in with current state law that gives minors 12 years or older the ability to make reproductive health decisions, such as obtaining human papillomavirus vaccines and Hepatitis B.
“It’s about empowering teens to make decisions about their own health and safety,” said Wiener. “Nearly a million California teens are unvaccinated, and many of those teens are because their parents refuse to vaccinate them or have not yet vaccinated them.”
Vaccine consent laws vary across the country, with Washington, DC and Philadelphia allowing children older than 01 years are vaccinated without parental approval. If the Legislature passes SB 866 and Newsom signs it, the bill would go into effect on January 1, 2023.
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