CALIFORNIA VACCINATION WAIVER

By Maureen Shepard CCH

People often ask me how I became interested in homeopathy and how long I’ve been using it. In these conversations, I often mention that I’m grateful I learned about homeopathy early enough in life to avoid vaccinating my two children. Young mothers often tell me they’d like to do this, but can’t because vaccinations are required for school attendance in California.

Vaccinations are required for admittance to schools and child care programs unless the parent or guardian “files with the governing authority a letter or affidavit stating that the immunization is contrary to his or her beliefs” (Health and Safety Code 120365).

Filing this letter with your local school or day care center is surprisingly easy to do. When you first submit the letter, you may run into some degree of resistance, but if you politely but firmly insist, the school will accept it. I actually only had to deal with this issue twice for each child – once when the child entered day care and again when he entered kindergarten. After that, the waiver (as this letter is called) resided in my child’s cumulative folder and followed him from school to school.

When my younger son was in the seventh grade, he had a bit of a scare because new vaccinations were added to the list of the required ones. All the children were being told that they must have these vaccinations by a certain date or they would be sent home from school, no exceptions. I told him that meant no exceptions unless he had a waiver on file. He didn’t really believe me, but when he checked with the office, he was told not to worry, he had a waiver on file and all the talk about required vaccinations didn’t apply to him.

When this same child went overseas to school, I was concerned that he would need vaccinations. But I found that vaccinations were merely recommended, not required, for travel to that country. He attended high school in Tonga (in the South Pacific), and traveled to Australia on a school trip with no problems.

Here is the wording that I used in my request for waiver:

I hereby request exemption of my child from the immunization requirements for school entry because these immunizations are contrary to my beliefs. I understand that in case of an outbreak of any one of these diseases, the child may temporarily be excluded from school for his/her protection.

Some parents want their children to have some vaccinations but not others. This letter doesn’t work if you want to pick and choose. But if you want to avoid all vaccinations, it works very well.

Here are some resources I recommend to parents who are trying to decide whether to vaccinate their children:

• National Vaccine Information Center
• Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute>
• Vaccine Website (Whale)
• Shirley's Wellness Cafe (search for vaccinations)