After an acrimonious 4-month battle in California between doctors, public health advocates, epidemiologists, historians, and the celebrity-speckled anti-vaccine fringe, sound medical science has finally won the day. Earlier this afternoon Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 277, which ends “personal belief” vaccination exemptions—religious or otherwise—for children attending public or private schools in California.

Activists, including those of us at the Center for Inquiry, had been growing uneasy as the bill inched closer to Brown’s desk. In 2012, the governor used his executive power to insert a religious exemption into a similar bill, Assembly Bill 2109, which required Californians to consult with a physician before receiving a “personal belief” exemption. The signing statement decree was a last-minute retreat that critically weakened the bill. And until today, Brown had remained coy on SB 277.

To the relief of SB 277 supporters, in this signing statement Brown settled for pointing out the simple fact that vaccination saves lives and protects everyone from needless suffering, especially the most vulnerable:

“The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases. While it’s true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community.”

By no means is SB 277 perfect. As it weaved its way through the state legislature, two frustrating amendments were added to the bill. The first set vaccination “checkpoints” at kindergarten and 7th grade. Although it ensures that all new students are vaccinated beginning in 2016, this structure allows unvaccinated students already in the school system at that time to remain enrolled until they reach 7th grade, at which point they must be vaccinated or switch to homeschooling. Unvaccinated students already in the 8th grade or later can continue in the district, unvaccinated, until graduation from high school. If an unvaccinated student changes school districts, however, they must be vaccinated before attending their new school.

The second, more consequential amendment limits SB 277 to only barring belief exemptions for the 10 vaccines currently required in California. Almost certainly related to religious and secular fear-mongering about Gardasil and Cervarix—HPV vaccines, increasingly required nationwide, that protect against cervical and other cancers—the amendment allows parents and individuals to claim a philosophical exemption from any vaccines introduced and required in the future.

Regardless, SB 277’s passage marks a tremendous and overdue victory for public health and vaccination. It also comes in the nation’s most populous state, which now joins Mississippi and West Virginia as the only 3 states to ban belief exemptions. This victory also stands as a powerful repudiation of the paranoid, privileged, anti-scientific, ahistorical, and inhumane anti-vaccine fringe, from its ideology to its idols—and in one of the movement’s strongest bastions.

As lawmakers, doctors, and public health advocates take up the fight in new states nationwide, they could do far worse than to model themselves on the tenacious California activists—including Vaccinate California, the California Immunization Coalition, the California Medical Association, and others—and their vindicated campaign to protect both sound medical science and the most vulnerable citizens among them.

Public health officials are worried about a possible Measles outbreak on Martha’s Vineyard after an unvaccinated child was diagnosed with the disease last week:

“While the child was immediately identified and subsequently isolated from the community, we know that individuals on the island were exposed to the virus during a phase of the illness in which the patient is infectious but has no symptoms,” the hospital said in a statement.

Measles can be very contagious to children and adults who are not vaccinated against it. Symptoms are similar to a cold at first, but a red blotchy rash soon appears.

Anyone who thinks they might have measles should call their doctor first instead of going directly to a doctor’s office or a hospital.

Although the child was visiting Martha’s Vineyard from abroad, this case is likely in keeping with findings from earlier this month, that anti-vaccine parents tend to cluster in rich, white areas.

Bruce Japsen of Forbes reports on a significant development at the American Medical Association:

The American Medical Association endorsed an end to non-medical exemptions for immunization, saying the nation’s largest doctor group would throw its considerable lobbying clout behind state and national efforts to halt personal and religious exemptions from vaccinations for children entering schools.

The vote today by the AMA’s policy-making House of Delegates to seek more stringent state and federal immunization requirements comes at a critical time opponents of vaccination exemptions are successfully lobbying lawmakers in California and elsewhere for legislation to end non-medical exemptions from vaccination. Last December, a highly publicized outbreak of measles at Disneyland sickened more than 130 Californians.

You can read the full report here.

Inspired by the California Senate’s recent efforts to repeal the state’s exemption from vaccine requirements, Jerry Coyne argues on Slate that lawmakers across the United States should repeal religious exemptions from medical care:

Keep reading here.

From the Center for Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy:

California Senate Bill 277 — a bill that would end vaccination exemptions for children based on their parents’ beliefs — passed all 3 of its Senate committee votes. It now sits before the Senate awaiting a full and final vote, as early as this week! The Center for Inquiry urges you to support SB 277 and take action below to contact your state senator now!

Take action here.