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BY DAVID PARKER SPECIAL TO THE SACRAMENTO BEE OCTOBER 30, 2024 11:06 AM
In his second inaugural address, Gov. Gavin Newsom committed California to righting historical wrongs, and to “confront our errors with humility and conviction.” But he just missed an easy opportunity to end nearly seven decades of discrimination by vetoing the repeal of an outdated 1957 law originally established to enforce California’s prohibition on drivers’ licenses being issued to anyone “who is insane or feeble-minded or an idiot, imbecile or epileptic.”
Senate Bill 357, authored by Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Burbank, would have finally ended California’s shameful decades-old policy that all adults and teenagers with epilepsy must be reported to the government. The failure of the legislation revealed how hard it can be to correct the mistakes of the past, especially on lesser-known issues.
It has been 30 years since the American Academy of Neurology, American Epilepsy Society and Epilepsy Foundation of America issued a landmark statement that “there was unanimous agreement that physicians should not be required to report their patients” to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Yet California remains one of only six states that requires doctors to report patients with epilepsy to their local health office, which then shares the patient’s name and diagnosis with the DMV — whether they intend to drive or not.
SB 357 had a simple goal of adopting the longstanding national consensus and ending mandatory reporting of people with epilepsy. The bill would have brought California in line with most of the rest of the country in giving doctors the authority to report any patient who might be unsafe to drive, rather than mandating that absolutely everyone diagnosed with epilepsy be reported to the government.
To promote public understanding of the shift in policy, SB 357 also directed the DMV to produce a data-driven report on drivers with epilepsy, ensuring that future discussions about the issue would be based in evidence, not preconceived notions. The bill also included sensible liability provisions, so doctors could have open conversations with their patients with epilepsy, preserving a critical relationship often undermined by the current mandatory reporting regime.
The California Legislature unanimously passed SB 357. Newsom said no.
In his veto message Newsom stressed the need “to maintain proper safeguards for public safety.” But there’s no compelling evidence that the discriminatory policy the veto maintains does anything to promote public safety.
One study has estimated that .01% of accidents were caused by people with epilepsy — that’s one in ten thousand. Epilepsy remains subject to mandatory reporting simply because it’s always been subject to mandatory reporting, despite what the data shows.
There’s also no evidence that mandatory reporting makes a state’s roads any safer. What the data does show is that fear of being reported to the government makes people with epilepsy afraid to be completely open and honest with their physicians.
The bill Newsom vetoed would not have imposed any new limits on California’s ability to keep unsafe drivers off the road. In fact, the bill would have maintained the DMV’s total authority to withhold a license from a driver they deemed unsafe. So when Newsom, who has made “California for All” a motto of his administration, talks about epilepsy in terms of “public safety,” all he’s doing is endorsing an ancient prejudice that people with epilepsy are inherently dangerous.
In that same inaugural speech, Newsom vowed that “California commits itself to the process of getting it right for the next generation.” I hope so. I don’t want my 10-year-old daughter, Vivian, to grow up in a world where she’s made to feel ashamed of her epilepsy.
A lot has changed for people with epilepsy since 1957, including major advances in the treatment of seizures. Epilepsy is not uncommon, affecting 1 in 26 people. Ignorance about epilepsy, however, remains widespread. We will never move past old prejudices if we don’t change the laws built upon them.
Newsom is right when he calls California “a state of dreamers and doers.” That’s why we will bring this repeal back to Sacramento every year until he joins us, in his own words, in “paving the way for rights and freedom to prevail.” David Parker is on the board of Epilepsy Foundation Los Angeles, which sponsored Senate Bill 357.
Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article294679319.html#storylink=cpy
David Parker is on the board of Epilepsy Foundation Los Angeles, which sponsored Senate Bill 357.
