On Thursday, the controversial vaccine exemption bill has been approved in the California Senate. According to reports, now the supporters of the bill have been confident that the bill will also succeed in clearing the Assembly and will be signed into law soon.

The vaccine exemption bill was introduced by Democratic Senators Richard Pan from Sacramento, and Ben Allen from Santa Monica. It was introduced after measles outbreak in December last year at Disneyland that sickened more than 125 people in California. On Thursday, the bill managed to get 25-10 vote after the senators decided to compromises aimed at easing its passage.

The California State Senate Richard Pan said in appeal for passage, “Vaccines are necessary to protect us. That protection has been eroding. The science is clear: Vaccines are safe and efficacious”.

The bill, SB 277, will require kids to be vaccinated before enrolling into kindergarten. The bill will put California State among three states that do not allow personal or religious exemptions to vaccine laws. Other two states are Mississippi and West Virginia.

To deal with concern by critics about the ever-expanding list of shots, the authors of the bill have agreed to limit the number of required vaccines to ten. The authors have also made changes in their bills to eliminate a requirement for schools in the state to inform parents about immunization rates. According to the reports, the changes have helped the authors to bypass the SB 277 by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

As per the reports, the key compromise was to ‘grandfather in’ a number of students in state’s schools whose parents claimed personal belief exemptions. It means that about more than 12,000 children who didn’t have had vaccinations by first grade will not be vaccinated until they enter seventh grade.