Calif. initiative to ban fluoride, chlorine, vaccine requirements approved to collect signatures

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A ballot initiative that would ban fluoride, chlorine, genetically modified organisms and some vaccine ingredients was approved to begin collecting signatures last week, the California Secretary of State's office announced.

Dubbed the "California Clean Environment Initiative" by its creator Cheriel Jensen, the initiative would also eliminate vaccination requirements at schools and daycares, ban more than 300 chemicals it claims are linked to cancer, autism and Parkinson's disease, and prohibit the use of smart meters to monitor energy consumption.

"These companies that make the chemicals have taken our right to refuse those chemicals away," Jensen told Patch.

After a 2014 measles epidemic at Disneyland infected 159 people, California passed a law that did away with "personal belief exemptions" parents had been using to avoid vaccinating their children when sending them to school (at least one study indicates there has since been an uptick in parents using medical exemptions to claim their children are too frail to be vaccinated).

The California Clean Environment Initiative would abolish requirements that children be vaccinated to attend school.

"No one shall be excluded from medical care, medical practice, insurance, insurance payments, entitlements, employment, school, daycare, or removed from caregivers on the basis of their medical injection decisions," it reads.

Jensen, a retired city planner and Saratoga resident, told the Times of San Diego she introduced the measure because of her belief that chemicals are linked to autism, Parkinson's and cancer.

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Jensen has sued Santa Clara County more than once in recent years over environmental issues. One such lawsuit stemmed from the county's use of pesticides during mosquito fogging to prevent the spread of West Nile Virus; another aimed to stop the county from spending the proceeds of a half-cent sales tax increase on transportation infrastructure because she contends proposed construction is near an "ancient aquifer," she told San Jose Inside.

Backlash to the California Clean Environment Initiative was swift, with headlines including "Californians could vote to give themselves the measles" (Mother Jones) and "California green-lights initiative that is conspiracy theorist's dream" (Ars Technica).

Although mocked as kooky by some, certain rules proposed by the initiative are already in effect in some parts of California; Genetically modified crops are banned in six California counties, for instance.

The initiative's backers must collect 365,880 signatures — 5 percent of the total votes cast in the 2014 gubernatorial election — by Aug. 6 for the initiative to actually appear on the ballot.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter



