Dr. Bob Sears, an Orange County pediatrician and nationally known critic of vaccination laws, faces the loss of his medical license after the state medical board accused him of improperly excusing a toddler from immunization and endangering both the child and the public.
Legal documents released Thursday show that Sears committed “gross negligence” when he issued a letter in 2014 prescribing no more vaccines for the child.
By not providing an “evidence-based recommendation,” Sears left the child, his mother and “future contacts at risk for preventable and communicable disease,”said the according medical board’s accusation.
Sears, 47, whose “The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child” has sold more than 250,000 copies and made him a celebrity among parents who see peril in the mandatory vaccination regime.
The medical board’s accusation says that Sears began seeing the 2-year-old child, identified only by his initials, on April 3, 2014. The child’s mother described the child’s vaccination history and said he went “limp ‘like a ragdoll’ ” for 24 hours after his three-month vaccines, according to the accusation.
Ten days later, Sears excused the child from vaccines and wrote that the boy’s kidneys and intestines shut down after prior immunizations, according to the legal papers. The doctor also said that at three months, the child suffered an apparent encephalitis reaction that began 10 minutes after receiving the vaccine.
The letter was not stored in the boy’s medical file, for which the board accused Sears of failing to maintain adequate and accurate records.