Thank you Carl Pascal

"I think it was Sen. Allen who during the full Senate discussion of SB 277 described polio as contagious.
Interestingly, some doctors at the time of the polio epidemics of the 1950s believed polio was neither contagious nor
infectious. Some believed it was essentially a nutritional disease. Others believed it was secondary to exposure to
the then-ubiquitous, now-banned chemical DDT.
In fact, according to the book The Reality Behind the Myth, Volume 3, by Walene James, THE NONCONTAGIOUS
NATURE OF POLIO WAS ONE OF THE CENTRAL ARGUMENTSUSED IN CALIFORNIA TO SECURE THE
PERSONAL BELIEF EXEMPTION clause in the compulsory polio immunization bill (AB 1940).
AB 1940, signed into law on June 13, 1961 by Governor Pat Brown, father of current Governor Jerry Brown, would
not have been enacted without inclusion of the Personal Belief Exemption. California legislators, perhaps less
beholden 54 years ago to lobbyists and corporations, and aware that polio science was not settled, saw the value
to society in allowing parents to opt out by providing a simple letter stating that such immunization is contrary to his
or her beliefs.
The mandatory polio shot bill was introduced on February 24, 1961, concurrent, as today, with a national
vaccination push, and the Sabin polio vaccine rollout. The bills Pan and Allen were Assemblymen Bert DeLotto, a
real estate broker from Fresno, and William Rumford, a pharmacist and the first black man elected to state public
office in Northern California.
Rumford, chairman of the Assembly Public Health Committee since 1953, owned Rumfords Pharmacy in Berkeley
which became a virtual political headquarters for many local politicians. In 1959, Rumford headed a major
investigation into the health effects of DDT, and discovered a large contamination of it in milk supplies. Might he
have discovered something else that influenced his advocacy for the polio shot two years later?
Unlike SB 277, AB 1940 was initiated in the Assembly rather than Senate, but like SB 277 it ended up going to three
committees, Education, Public Health, and Ways and Means. Its not clear what happened in the Education
Committee, but all indications are the bill was having a tough time getting through, because on March 9 DeLotto
obtained the full Assemblys unanimous consent to pull it from Education and re-refer it to Public Health. Sound
familiar?
Public Health appears to have been where most discussion took place, as the bill was reported out of committee
with five amendments, all adopted by the full Assembly. Significantly, Amendment 5 broadened what was originally
proposed as solely a religious exemption by removing the word religious from before beliefs, to create the
philosophical exemption we enjoy to this day.
Don Matchen, who represented the National Health Federation, appeared before the committee on March 29 to
advocate for the Personal Belief Exemption and present information from doctors such as Ralph R. Scobey, who
believed the fundamental cause of [polio] appears to be a poisonous or toxic activator, not a virus. Matchen also
referred to the work of J. E. R. McDonagh, a British doctor sympathetic to homeopathy, who stated in his book The
Universe Through Medicine that "the virus is formed within, and does not come from without."
AB 1940 was reported out of Public Health on April 12, then passed through Ways and Means with no changes, and
on May 12 was voted on by the full Assembly, which approved it 59-3. It then went to the Senate, where it passed
through the Senate Public Health and Safety Committee unamended, was passed easily on June 6 by the full
Senate, 27-1, and signed into law a week later by Governor Brown.
AB 1940 came into force January 1, 1962. Shortly thereafter, the federal Vaccination Assistance Act of 1962 was
enacted to "achieve as quickly as possible the protection of the population, especially of all preschool
children...through intensive immunization activity over a limited period of time."
Why the urgency? Incidence of polio had already declined precipitously. No matter, the vaccine era was off and
running.
History repeats. For 54 years, California has had no problem accommodating the small minority that uses vaccine
exemptions. So why are many of todays lawmakers suddenly so hellbent on antagonizing that minority?"
#SB277 #mine
#NoonSB277
#CDCWhistleblower