Arizona should copy California and require vaccines

California's legislature just passed a law removing all exemptions to vaccine requirements for admission to school, public or private, except for those medically indicated.

This time -- this ONE time -- Arizona should copy California.

Gov. Jerry Brown said, "The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases. While it's true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community."

This isn't about parental choice; it's about public health.

Parental choice shouldn't allow one parent to put another parent's child at risk.

Arizona's laws are way to lax on this. Many states already deny philosophical exemptions. Two other states besides California --Mississippi and West Virginia -- prohibit even religious exemptions.

It's time for Arizona to enter the 21st century and follow their lead.

As it is, Arizona parents can sign personal or medical exemption waivers.

Medical exemptions make sense. Not personal.

The law essentially immunizes parents from common sense.

The reason that illnesses like measles were (for a time) relegated to the history books rather than the hospital wards is because people in previous generations recognized the wonder of vaccines.

Parents in those generation were so grateful and so elated to have protections for their kids. They used them. They were smart.

Parents these days, at least some of them, are ... less so.

When citizens purposefully ignore science the government must step in.

That's what California has done and what we should do. The best way to suppress an outbreak of any childhood disease for which there is a suitable vaccine, like measles, is to deny access to schools for children who are not vaccinated.

No vaccine. No school. Period. Except home school.

Earlier this year I sent a note to Gov. Doug Ducey's office to find out if the governor is in favor of requiring vaccines.

His spokesman wrote back to me: "Governor Ducey believes vaccines are one of the greatest medical achievements of the last century, saving lives and even eradicating fatal diseases altogether. He encourages all Arizona families to be proactive, consult their pediatricians and vaccinate their children."

Encouragement is good. A law that requires vaccines is better.

Encouragement can be ignored with no legal consequence.

The medical consequences, however, could be considerable.