Four months after a measles outbreak that began at Disneyland ran its cross-country course, the California general assembly on Thursday approved a bill that would require all children in public schools to be vaccinated.

The bill, which lays out what would be one of the strictest vaccination regimes in the country, would eliminate current exceptions that allow for students to go unvaccinated due to personal beliefs or on religious grounds.

It was unclear whether Governor Jerry Brown intended to sign the bill, which opponents said would intrude on families’ private health decisions.

A move to close the personal belief loophole gained steamed after an outbreak of measles that began late last year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracked 125 measles cases nationwide from the outbreak, including 110 in California. The disease can cause severe health complications in young children and can in some cases be fatal.

“As a pediatrician, I have personally witnessed children suffering life-long injury and death from vaccine-preventable infection,” Dr Richard Pan, a state senator who coauthored the legislation, said in a statement.

“The personal belief exemption is now endangering the public and [this bill] will restore vaccination rates and protect all children in school.”

But Rebecca Estepp, a San Diego-area mother and director of communications for HealthChoice, a national nonprofit that challenges the bedrock science of vaccinations, called the bill “extraordinarily intrusive”.



“I don’t need to the state of California getting in between my doctor and I, saying that my children need to be vaccinated,” Estepp told the Guardian. “They keep on saying ‘this is because of Disneyland’, but not one case was transmitted in a classroom setting. This is just an overreaction.”

During debate over the bill this spring, the parents of a seven-year-old leukemia survivor who could not be vaccinated while recovering from chemotherapy testified that doubts about the consistency of vaccinations in public schools left them in fear for their child.

Carl Krawitt, the cancer survivor’s father, called on the governor to sign the bill.

“I have been troubled by the silence,” Krawitt said.

Twelve of the patients in the Disneyland breakout were infants too young to be vaccinated, according to the CDC.