LOS ANGELES _ The Medical Board of California this week ordered that Dr. Bob Sears, an Orange County pediatrician and leading vaccine skeptic, be put on probation for 35 months.
The medical board had accused Sears of gross negligence for writing a doctor's note for a 2-year-old boy exempting him from all childhood vaccinations. Sears agreed to settle the case.
Under the decision, Sears can keep practicing medicine but will be required to take 40 hours of medical education courses a year, as well as an ethics class, and also be monitored by a fellow doctor. He also must notify all hospital and medical facilities where he practices of the order.
In a Facebook post Friday, Sears denied any wrongdoing.
"Isn't it my job to listen to my patients and believe what a parent says happened to her baby? Isn't that what all doctors do with their patients?" Sears wrote. "After all, I don't want a child to receive a medical treatment that could cause more harm. I am going to first do no harm, every time."
Sears also said that the medical board has four more cases lined up against him.
"It seems there is an attempt to keep me on probation for the rest of my medical career," Sears wrote.
Both public health advocates and vaccine skeptics had been closely watching the allegations against Sears, who was seen as a test case for how California will enforce a strict new vaccination law.
"It struck me as possibly the best decision that was going to come down," said Dr. Jay Gordon, a Santa Monica pediatrician who supports Sears and opposes the stricter vaccine laws in California. "He has a different point of view on vaccine scheduling than is usual, but I think he acted in very, very good faith."
Sears faced punishments ranging from a public reprimand to a permanent revocation of his license. In the last fiscal year, the medical board, which licenses 137,967 doctors in California, took away 10 licenses because of gross negligence, while putting 85 doctors on probation.
In its accusation against Sears filed in 2016, the medical board said Sears didn't obtain basic medical information, such as vaccines the 2-year-old boy had received and any reactions to them, before recommending that the child not have any more vaccinations. He took the boy's mother at her word when she said her son lost urinary function and went limp in response to previous immunizations, according to the filing.
Catherine Martin, of the pro-vaccine advocacy group California Immunization Coalition, said she thought the decision was fair, given that Sears had no prior infractions. She said she expected it would make other doctors think twice about writing exemptions without verifying medical records.
"I hope it gives them pause and helps them understand that this is not acceptable," Martin said. "I think it's a sign that the medical board takes these infractions seriously."
Vaccine exemptions have become a central part of the immunization debate in California in recent years.
After a measles outbreak that originated in Disneyland, California passed a tough inoculation law in 2015. The new law, known as SB 277, prevents parents from citing religious or other personal beliefs to get out of vaccinating their children. Now children must have a doctor's note if they don't have their shots.
The decision as to whether a child qualifies for a medical exemption was left fully up to the doctors under the law. Some public health advocates have criticized doctors who have advertised online that they will write exemptions for children with asthma or skin conditions such as psoriasis.
Many looked to the Sears case to see how aggressively California would patrol doctors who are writing exemptions for children.
"I don't believe that the board really wants to get involved in this," Gordon said. "I think the law is pretty clear in this issue about medical exemptions _ it's in the hands of the doctor who knows the patient best."
Thousands of parents who had been citing personal beliefs to get out of immunizations took their kids to get vaccinated after the law took effect, pushing up overall vaccination rates. But some schools continue to have dangerously low rates of vaccinated children, in large part because many students got new medical exemptions.
"We're going to keep watching that to make sure that our physicians are understanding what a legitimate permanent medical exemptions is," Martin said.
In addition to the complaint that launched the Sears investigation, more than 50 others have been filed against physicians who are accused of improperly writing exemptions in the past three years, according to the state medical board. Roughly half have been investigated and closed without any disciplinary action, while the others are still pending.
