CA Medical Board Takes Action to Protect Children’s Health: Dr. Bob Sears Placed on Probation

By Amy Pisani,  Executive Director, ECBT (mother of two fully vaccinated teenage boys)

Last week, the Medical Board of California ordered a 35-month probation for Dr. Bob Sears, an Orange County pediatrician who is best known for hawking an “alternative” vaccination schedule for young children, promoting the unproven theory that vaccines cause autism, and being a champion for parents who seek to claim exemptions from school vaccination requirements.

The revocation of Dr. Sears’ medical license was stayed by the Medical Board, which allows him to continue practicing medicine, as long as he follows certain requirements of his probation including taking Board-approved medical education and ethics classes, and allowing a Board-approved monitor to watch and report on his medical practices. Through this disciplinary order, the Medical Board is providing Sears with a clear warning against future misconduct.

The overall charges against Sears include gross negligence and repeated negligence in his care and treatment of a patient (a child called J.G), and failure to maintain adequate and accurate records. The formal accusation brought by the Executive Director of the Medical Board of California Kimberly Kirchmeyer provides specific examples of Sears’ departures from the medical standard of care, “which require that a physician who is evaluating a patient for possible reaction to vaccines obtain a detailed history of the vaccines previously received as well as the reaction that occurred. Based on that information the physician should provide an evidence-based recommendation for future immunizations.” The accusation continues “the respondent was grossly negligent and departed from the standard of care in that he did not obtain the basic information necessary for decision making prior to determining to exclude the possibility of future vaccines leaving both the patient, the patient’s mother, and his future contacts at risk for preventable and communicable diseases.”

Forbes’ contributor Tara Haelle, who has been following this case against Dr. Bob Sears since last year, noted that:

“the charges involve much more than writing a vaccine exemption letter. According to the accusation, Sears failed to test the same toddler for neurological problems after the child was hit on the head with a hammer and failed to investigate alleged vaccine reactions that, if they did occur, would have been life-threatening. He also prescribed garlic for the child’s ear infection despite there being no evidence of its effectiveness. Such departures from the medical standard of care prompt questions about what other ways Sears might be practicing negligently beyond this complaint.”

Ms. Haelle’s latest Forbes article offers insight into Dr. Sears’ extensive history of anti-vaccination practices and advocacy efforts:

“When physicians practice this type of substandard care, it places children’s lives at risk. Dr. Sears’ bias against vaccines flies in the face of overwhelming evidence of the safety and necessity of timely vaccinations,” Amy Pisani, MS, executive director of Every Child By Two told me.

“With notoriety comes great responsibility. Dr. Sears’ promotion of his ‘alternative vaccine schedule’ has helped perpetuate the myth that vaccines are not safe for children, which is shameful,” Pisani said. “This ruling should send a strong message to providers that the practice of medicine must be based on evidence, not anecdote, and signing vaccine waivers without medical necessity is not an acceptable practice.”

Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, details the legal ramifications of Sears’ probation and offers insight into Sears’ past actions in a recent Skeptical Raptor post 

Like many moms, I was an avid follower of the advice of Dr. Bill Sears, the father or Dr. Bob Spears and the well-known pediatrician who offered advice to parents on child rearing and attachment parenting. Over the last decade, it has been very disturbing to see Dr. Bob using his father’s name and the Sears Parenting Library to sell his books, which contain inaccurate vaccination information and fuel parents’ fears about vaccines. Dr. Bob Sears’ “alternative” vaccination schedule, which encourages parents to either skip or delay recommended vaccines for their children, is dangerous and ignores the importance of following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) recommended schedule.

The CDC sets the U.S. immunization schedules for children, teens and adults based on recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The ACIP, which is made up of medical and public health experts, carefully considers many factors, including the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, before recommending a vaccine for use. As a result, the CDC’s recommended childhood immunization schedule (from birth to 18 years old) is the ONLY vaccination schedule for children and teens that is rigorously tested for safety and effectiveness. No “alternative” or “non-standard” schedule has ever been tested. The CDC’s recommended schedule is also endorsed by the leading medical groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The vaccines in the schedule are carefully timed to provide protection to children when they are most vulnerable to diseases, and when the vaccines will produce the strongest response from their immune system.

Learn more about how the vaccine schedule is determined and why it is never okay to delay a child’s vaccines.