The debate over delicensing anti-vaccination physicians

Vaccination advocates and groups that claim immunizations can be harmful have found something new to fight over: an Orange County, California, pediatrician’s medical license.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, the California Medical Board to trying to pull the license of Robert Sears, MD. Sears has been “a leading voice in the anti-vaccination world,” but the medical board case deals with the note he wrote exempting a 2-year-old patient from getting immunized for the rest of his childhood. 

The board’s six-page report accuses Sears of having been “grossly negligent and depart[ing] from the standard of care” by writing a blanket exemption to vaccines for the child after problems with kidney and brain function. The issue, according to the board, is Sears didn’t include documentation showing proper care or referral to a specialist for those issues allegedly cause by a vaccine.   

While vaccination supporters see the case as an important one to enforce California’s law requiring a doctor’s note for vaccination exemptions, other physicians opposed to those stricter standards say this punishment intrudes on the patient-doctor relationship.

“I know that somebody could challenge my medical exemptions, but I’m complying with the letter of the law and the spirit of the law and I’m very bothered by this,” said Jay Gordon, MD, a Santa Monica, California, pediatrician. “For all I know, I’m the next person they’re planning to pursue.”

For more on the next steps in the case, and how anti-vaccine parents have tried to work around the California law, click on the link below: