Press Releases

Sacramento, CA— Dr. Richard Pan, pediatrician and State Senator who authored Senate Bill 277 in 2015 which removed all exemptions to vaccine requirements for school entry except medical exemptions, and Leah Russin, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Vaccinate California, a parent advocacy group working to improve public health in California by raising vaccination rates, made the following statements after today’s release of a Centers of Disease Control and Prevention report that provides details of a 2018 measles outbreak among unvaccinated individuals in California. 

SACRAMENTO – Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and state senator representing the Sacramento area, and Senator Anthony Portantino, introduced Senate Bill 428 today to increase school and community-level capacity to tackle California’s growing youth mental health crisis.

The measure is sponsored by a coalition of organizations including the California Council of Behavioral Health Associations (CBHA), California Behavioral Health Directors Association (CBHDA), Born this Way Foundation, and Children Now.

SACRAMENTO – Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and state senator representing the Sacramento region, sent a letter to U.S. Surgeon General Vice Adm. Jerome M. Adams calling on him to issue a call to action on vaccine hesitancy in the United States and make this crisis a public health priority.

In the letter, Dr. Richard Pan wrote:

SACRAMENTO – Dr. Richard Pan, state senator and Chair of the Senate Select Committee on the 2020 United States Census issued the following statement after a federal judge struck down the Trump Administration’s attempt to use the 2020 Census as a political tool to prevent diverse communities from participating in the census.