Dr. Bob Sears of California is punished by the state’s medical board with 35 months of probation for a 2014 infraction of writing a vaccine exemption note for a 2-year-old child. He is also an advocate for a different vaccination schedule than the ones recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Vaccine Exemption

In 2016, the Medical Board of California threatened to suspend Dr. Bob Sears’ medical license after it learned that in 2014, the doctor wrote a vaccine exemption note for a 2-year-old patient without properly obtaining his full medical records first. The child’s mother told Dr. Sears of her child’s adverse reaction to a previous vaccination and needed an exemption note as she was fearful that the judge might force them to continue with the vaccinations at an upcoming hearing.

Evidently, when the mother told Dr. Sears that her child lost urinary function and went limp “like a ragdoll” because of a previous vaccination, Dr. Sears did not obtain the necessary documents for decision making before he wrote the exemption note for all future vaccinations. He based it simply on the “2 year” which is a summary of the patient’s medical history, with vaccination reaction descriptions as described by the child’s mother.

The note indicated that the child experienced kidney and intestine shut down, severe encephalitis, limpness, lethargy, and poor responsiveness as a result of a previous vaccination

“Due to the severity of this second reaction, I recommend no more routine vaccines for the duration of his childhood,” the 2014 exemption note stated.

According to the board, this act may have placed the child, the mother, and others they may come in contact with at risk of communicable diseases.

Probation And The Fight For Informed Consent

This week, the Medical Board of California decided to place Dr. Sears on a 35-month probation instead of the earlier threat of medical license suspension. He must also take an ethics class as well as 40 hours of medical education courses per year, must notify the facilities or clinics in which he practices about the order, and he is not allowed to supervise nurse practitioners or physician assistants.

In a long Facebook response to the decision, Dr. Bob Sears stated that he has accepted the board’s decision but maintains that he did not do anything wrong as it was his job to listen to, and trust his patients, especially when their words were the only evidence that he had at the time. Furthermore, he states in the post that the mother needed the note immediately because of the upcoming court case, and that it apparently took over a year to get the patient’s medical records.

“Now that case one is settled, I can go back to being loud and proud about my belief that every single patient should receive complete informed consent prior to vaccinations,” said Dr. Sears in the post, firm on his stand about giving parents full and objective information on the risks that they will take if they do or do not vaccinate their children. “And I will fight against mandatory vaccination laws until they are no more.”