A state medical official has filed disciplinary charges against a Santa Rosa physician who exempted three healthy youngsters from vaccination, part of a surge of medical exemptions after California repealed parents’ authority to keep their children from being vaccinated because of personal beliefs.
The accusations of gross negligence or incompetence could lead to the suspension or revocation of Dr. Ron Kennedy’s license to practice medicine, which he has held since 1975. The allegations were filed Wednesday by Christine Lally, executive director of the Medical Board of California, and will be considered by the board at a future hearing.
California requires schoolchildren to be inoculated against infectious diseases, including measles, mumps, chicken pox, tetanus, whooping cough, polio and rubella. Parents could formerly invoke personal opposition to vaccinations to exempt their children, but the state repealed the exemption in 2016 after an outbreak of measles traced to children at Disneyland. It also required a doctor to approve any exemptions for health reasons.
The state’s vaccination rate increased after the law took effect but the number of medical exemptions more than tripled, according to a 2018 study by the American Academy of Pediatrics. A followup law, effective this year, requires the state Department of Public Health to review medical exemptions by doctors who frequently grant them or for children attending schools with an immunization rate of less than 95%.
Kennedy works at an “anti-aging” medical clinic in Santa Rosa. He initially refused to turn over his records to the state Medical Board, but a San Francisco judge and a state appeals court ordered him to release the documents, and the state Supreme Court declined to review his appeal.
According to Lally’s accusation, Sonoma County health officials received complaints from schools and preschools in 2017 expressing concerns about medical exemptions Kennedy was issuing.
One was for a seventh-grade student who had previously been exempted because of her parents’ personal beliefs. Kennedy’s records said the teenager “has always enjoyed good health,” Lally said, and neither her medical history nor the school records had any information suggesting vaccines might harm her.
Kennedy evaluated the student in July 2017 and granted her a permanent medical exemption from all vaccines, based on what he described as a family history of mental and emotional problems, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, Lally said.
She also cited medical exemptions Kennedy had granted in November 2017 to boys ages 1 and 3. Their mother had told Kennedy the 3-year-old had gotten sick after vaccinations, but medical records showed no illnesses, Lally said.
Kennedy’s exemption order said the mother had a family history of vaccine-related illnesses. But after the children’s father objected, Kennedy rescinded the exemptions in January 2018.
In both cases, Lally said, Kennedy failed to follow standards for vaccination exemptions set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the American Academy of Pediatrics. Neither organization recognizes a family history of “disorders” or “various illnesses” as grounds for exemptions, she said.
Kennedy’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
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