Modest impact of California's vaccination law

SB 277 (passed in 2016) barred parents from citing their personal beliefs as a reason for not vaccinating their children and made California the third state in the nation to allow children to skip their shots only if they had a medical reason to do so.

A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that under SB 277, 1.87% of children would remain unvaccinated in 2027 because they are exempt from the law. Without the law, the percentage of kids exempt from vaccination requirements would have been 2.36%.

In the 2016-17 school year, the first year the law was in effect, the state’s kindergarten vaccination rate increased from 92.8% to 95.6%. But only part of that increase was because of the implementation of the new law, according to state data. SB 277 contributed to a 1 percentage point increase in vaccination rates, while the rest of the jump came from a drop in students out of compliance with the law, state data show.
 

Source: Los Angeles Times: California’s strict vaccination law will have only ‘modest’ impact, study says