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How Senator Allen's Letter to CDPH Reflects Years of AVFCA Advocacy
And Why AVFCA Continues to Work on this Issue to Drive Change!

For years, A Voice for Choice Advocacy has worked to ensure that California’s school vaccine laws include a real, workable pathway for children with legitimate medical needs. 

When SB 277 eliminated personal belief exemptions, lawmakers emphasized that medical exemptions would remain available for students with genuine medical risks. Senator Ben Allen was a principal co-author of SB 277 and has long been engaged in these issues. He later opposed SB 276 and SB 714, but those laws went on to impose strict limits and centralized reviews through CAIR-ME, making medical exemptions extremely difficult to obtain.

California’s current school medical-exemption system requires all K–12 exemptions to be submitted through CAIR-ME and strictly follow vaccine contraindication criteria. CDPH automatically reviews (and frequently revokes) exemptions, leaving few children eligible and discouraging physicians from submitting them due to intense oversight and risk of disciplinary action. As a result, CDPH has become the de facto decision-maker for individual exemptions, despite not providing direct care or evaluating the child in person.

Furthermore, doctors face intense scrutiny and risk to their licenses, and many are reluctant to write exemptions—even when medically justified. As a result, medical exemption rates have fallen to around 0.1%, leaving many vulnerable children without appropriate protection.

Over the past several years, AVFCA has diligently met with and educated legislators and their staff, including Senator Allen’s office, on the unitended consequences and to restore medical decision-making to licensed physicians, allowing exemptions when supported by appropriate clinical documentation, and ensuring the treating physician, not the state, provides primary oversight.  AVFCA is encouraged to see that our sustained advocacy is having an impact.

On January 27, 2026, Senator Ben Allen sent a detailed letter to the California Department of Public Health raising serious concerns about how medical exemptions are being administered and requesting transparency and accountability. His letter (https://avoiceforchoiceadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Senator-Allen-CDPH-–-Re-Vaccine-Medical-Exemptions-012726.pdf) asks direct questions about directives to schools and physicians, exemption review practices, revocations, referrals to medical boards, and whether adverse outcomes are being tracked.

A Voice for Choice has spent years equipping lawmakers with accurate information about how current policies affect students and families. We continue to advocate for meaningful legislative reform, while also pressing for oversight and accountability within existing systems.  In this case, our persistence has made a difference.

We thank Senator Ben Allen for stepping up and asking the tough questions.  AVFCA recognizes that Senator Allen is in his final year in office and is currently running for statewide office. We appreciate his willingness to use his position to press for transparency and fairness on behalf of AVFCA and California families. This moment shows what sustained, principled advocacy can accomplish.

AVFCA will continue working for reforms that restore medical decision-making to physicians, protect children with legitimate health risks, and ensure that state agencies serve families—not override them. This sits side-by-side with AVFCA’s ongoing litigation to defend religious exemptions and access to titer testing with respect to school vaccination requirements (https://avoiceforchoiceadvocacy.org/avfca-litigation/).  

For more than a decade, AVFCA has been the only organization in California working simultaneously in the Capitol, in the courtroom, and in communities across the state to defend informed choice, religious exemptions, and physician-led medical decision-making. 

If you found this information helpful and appreciate the work A Voice for Choice Advocacy is doing, please support us by making a donation today.

Together we can make change happen!

C

Christina Hildebrand
President/Founder
A Voice for Choice Advocacy, Inc.
[email protected]
www.AVoiceForChoiceAdvocacy.org