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About a Third of Medical Vaccine Exemptions in San Diego Came From one Doctor:
She wrote 141 exemptions since 2015. The second highest number was 26.
A single San Diego doctor wrote nearly a third of the area’s medical vaccination exemptions since 2015, according to an investigation by the local nonprofit news organization Voice of San Diego.
[...]Medical vaccination exemptions are intended for the relatively few people who have medical conditions that prevent them from receiving vaccines safely. That includes people who are on long-term immunosuppressive therapy or those who are immunocompromised, such as those with HIV or those who have had severe, life-threatening allergic reactions (e.g. anaphylaxis) to previous immunizations. Such patients typically receive medical exemptions incidentally during their medical care. But some doctors are providing evaluations specifically to determine if a patient qualifies for an exemption and granting exemptions using criteria not based on medical evidence. Some doctors are even charging fees for these questionable exemption evaluations—including the doctor in San Diego, Tara Zandvliet.
[...]Zandvliet charges $180 for the evaluation, and her practice does not accept insurance.
Since 2015, Zandvliet has issued 141 of the 486 total medical exemptions granted in the San Diego Unified School District. After Zandvliet, the second highest number of medical exemptions granted by a single doctor was 26. The Voice of San Diego noted that Zandvliet’s practice is listed on several websites as being friendly to anti-vaccine parents.
I would not trust such a doctor to have only my best interests at heart.
If my paying a fee can persuade the doctor to write my desired exemption, then it stands to reason that an incentive from, say, a "big pharma" representative could induce the doctor to prescribe medications for me that are either questionably warranted or for which there are better or less expensive alternatives.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:47PM
There is a doctor that is willing to sign off on an opinion that is out of the mainstream, and he gets more business because of it.
Anyway, this is part of the dilemma of what to do about children: On one hand, they are humans in special need of protection, sometimes from their own parents. So the State needs to make sure they do the right thing for them, like vaccinate them and give them a proper education. On the other hand, the State doesn't really care about the individual whereas parents might, parents should be able to raise their children to have individual opinions and be critical of the State, and then what is the incentive of raising a robot controlled by the State?
I don't know what is best, but as an adult I am glad that the state exists and protects me against outright harm from people I am forced to live with.