New State Law Requiring Vaccinations For Schoolchildren Takes Effect

MILL VALLEY (KPIX) -- California's new vaccination law went into effect Friday, eliminating most exemptions for school children, in an effort to protect everyone from communicable disease outbreaks.

Parents who don't trust vaccines are unhappy and some have turned to home-schooling their children as a way to get around the requirement. Others made sure they got exemption paperwork turned in before the Jan. 1, 2016 deadline so they can vaccinate at their own pace.

"It's really thrown me for a loop," Live Selle told KPIX 5. "I just don't want someone telling me what I have to do with my child -- putting things into my child's body."

Marin County is home to one of the Bay Area's highest concentrations of unvaccinated populations. Last year, two local children, infected with measles, spurred the county to pass a ban on the personal-belief exemption. Now, all California children entering day care, kindergarten or seventh grade must be up-to-date on their immunizations.

Opponents of the new law are still holding out hope for a repeal in the legislature but a push for a statewide referendum fell short of getting enough signatures.