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The California State Medical Board is accusing an Orange County pediatrician of "gross-negligence" for his decision to excuse a 2-year-old boy from receiving any further vaccine shots. The board contends that Dr. Robert Sears exercised poor medical judgement after excusing the boy based only on the child's mother's description of symptoms the boy allegedly experienced after receiving this three-month vaccines. If the medical board finds that Dr. Robert Sears did in fact act negligently, Sears could lose his medical license, reports the L.A. Times.
The legal documents made public on Thursday contend that his decision not to vaccinate the child was not a medically sound judgement. Instead of conducting a thorough medical examination of the child, Sears allegedly relied only on the testimony of the mother, who said the child went "limp like a rag doll" and "wasn't himself" during the 24-hours following the shots, according to the O.C. Register.
Ten days after the examination, Sears penned a letter prescribing that the boy be exempted from any further vaccines. The letter, which was not stored in the boy's medical file, said the child suffered an encephalitis reaction 10 minutes after receiving the three-month vaccines, and that the boy's kidney's and intestines "shut down."
Sears' decision to write a prescription without any physical or neurological examination, and his decision not to keep a copy of the exemption letter in the boy's medical charts add up to both medical negligence and failure to keep adequate and accurate medical records. Sears would be held to numerous penalties if found negligent, including possible suspension or loss of his license to practice medicine.
Bob Sears is one of the nation's most outspoken anti-vaccine advocates. His book "The Vaccine Book" is heralded as one of the preeminent anti-vaccination texts, and has sold more than 250,000 copies. Though, as Jezebel points out, even he has to concede that there is absolutely no scientific or medical link between vaccines and autism, rather that "research has not proven there is no link" between the two.
Back in 2015, California passed a law that requires all public school children be fully vaccinated, banning personal vaccine exemptions justified by personal or religious beliefs. Jim Carey, and a bunch of other celebrities, derided the law as nothing short of corporate fascism, but, alas, it is still with us. LAUSD reemphasized the law earlier this year, just before school began in August.
