Calif. Bill Requires Doc Notes for Refusing Child Vaccinations

Parents who don't have their children vaccinated will have to get a note from the doctor's office before enrolling their children in school under a bill that Gov. Jerry Brown announced Sunday he has signed into law.

AB2109 will require parents who enroll students who have not received the required public school vaccines to get a waiver from a physician or a nurse practitioner saying they have received information about the benefits and risks of immunization.

It was one of more than 100 bills that Brown acted on Sunday, his last day to consider bills sent to him by the Legislature this fall. He also signed a bill that could one day free some criminals who were sentenced as juveniles to life in prison and another making California the first state to ban a form of psychotherapy aimed at making gay teenagers straight. He vetoed bills including one that would have let judges declare that some California children have more than two legal parents; another increasing the media's access to prison inmates; and a third that would have provided overtime pay, meal breaks and other labor protections to caregivers, nannies and house cleaners.

Brown signed the vaccination bill amid what Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, called the largest national whooping cough epidemic in 50 years.

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