RE: SB 1377 (Jones) – Medical Exemptions – SUPPORT
Dear Senator Pierson,
Free Now Foundation is California’s leading medical freedom law nonprofit. We are deeply dismayed by the routine invalidation of valid medical exemptions from vaccination—issued by licensed California physicians—by the Department of Public Health.
When Governor Newsom signed SB 276 into law in 2019, it effectively dismantled the medical exemption process by creating a burdensome, designed-to-fail system. At the time, only about 2.5% of children held medical exemptions.
The new framework restricts medical exemption authority to California-licensed physicians, requires them to submit forms under penalty of perjury to a state database (CAIR-ME), and subjects both the physician and the exemption to review by the Department of Public Health (DPH). Physicians face heightened scrutiny—and potential discipline—if they issue more than a handful of exemptions in a year. Worse, any disciplinary action against a doctor, even for unrelated or resolved matters, can invalidate all exemptions they have ever written. This leaves families in an untenable position: forced to choose between their child’s health and their right to a free public education.
For families with medically vulnerable children, SB 276 has made it extremely difficult—if not impossible—to find a willing California physician. Even when a doctor agrees to issue and submit an exemption, DPH frequently denies it without ever examining the child or consulting the family. In our experience and that of the families we serve, virtually no exemptions survive DPH review. Reports also indicate that DPH has deployed consultants to schools specifically to identify and challenge remaining exemptions.
The result is that a single bureaucrat’s decision now determines whether a child can attend school, whether a parent in a dual-income household must quit their job to homeschool, or whether an entire family must uproot and relocate to another state for safety and access to education.
Throughout this process, there is no meaningful due process. Families receive no opportunity to present evidence, no independent appeal board, and no real recourse when exemptions are overturned. If families instead vaccinate against their physician’s recommendation and their child’s medical history, they risk further injury—with potential impacts on learning, development, and lifelong health. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program offers the only avenue for redress, but it is notoriously lengthy, adversarial, and difficult: roughly half of claims are denied, leaving injured children and their families to bear devastating financial and emotional burdens.
This is precisely why SB 1377 is essential. It would protect the integrity of the physician-patient relationship by shielding doctors from fear of reprisal when issuing medically appropriate exemptions and ensuring families can access them without arbitrary state override. Physicians must be free to practice medicine based on individual patient needs, not bureaucratic quotas. Vulnerable children deserve real protections, not a system that presumes their doctors are acting in bad faith.
Free Now Foundation strongly supports SB 1377 and urges you to vote in favor of restoring balanced, compassionate, and constitutionally sound medical exemption policies in California.
Thank you for your time and consideration. We are available to provide additional information or discuss this issue further.
Sincerely,
Alix Mayer, MBA
In 1996, Ms. Mayer was running a worldwide research group for Apple Inc., when she got 6 vaccines for a vacation and became disabled, brain damaged and lost her career. Now substantially recovered, she is Board Chair & President of Free Now Foundation, the leading medical freedom law non-profit in California.
Ms. Mayer is an in-demand speaker, and her lively presentations on 1/ The Measles Manipulation of RFK Jr., 2/ REAL ID: Weaponized Architecture, 3/ ABV: Anything But Vaccines and 4/ The Legal Howdunit of COVID have earned her recognition and accolades. "I know women in VP positions who do not hold a candle to this woman's sunlight," stated a commenter on a recent interview with Mike Adams, "She gives me hope that humanity still lives."
Ms. Mayer formerly served on the Children's Health Defense (CHD) board, co-founded & served as Chairman of CHD’s most successful Chapter in California, helping raise in excess of $5M, and served on RFK Jr’s Presidential campaign finance committee, raising hundreds of thousands for the campaign.
In 2022, she won the Golden Bear Award and a presentation she gave to Dr. Mercola was named a "Best of" interview. Her favorite award is her "Freedominator" Rock given by Marin Freedom Rising in 2023. Ms. Mayer grew up in the Oscar Mayer family, and has degrees from Duke (BA) and Northwestern (MBA.)
This is the first I have heard of your organization but I agree with what you are doing. Please let me know how I can help.
Hi Barbara, we are California’s leading medical freedom law non profit. I hope you can come to our event featuring Del Bigtree September 12th to raise funds for our legal work to end vaccine mandates! See our homepage to register, if you can make it! freenowfoundation.org
When I was in the RN program at Butte College between 1998 and 1999 I was told I had to get a triple series hepatitis B vaccine in order to work my clinicals at Oroville Hospital in Northwest California. After the third injection, I had acute kidney failure. I was dying until a fellow student came and pick me up from my apartment and took me to the emergency room. I had 105° fever. My urine was dark brown and cloudy with a consistency of mud. I was vomiting and couldn’t even keep down water. My head hurts so bad I couldn’t see straight. This is an abomination that any vaccine or any so-called medical intervention has ever been forced on any students in order to attend school and complete their education.