A California doctor sounded the alarm Monday on Governor Gavin Newsom's new vaccine mandate targeting school-age children, saying his decision was "not based on clinical evidence" but fueled by politics.
"The decision that the governor made is one that's really based on his personal beliefs that's based in politics," said Dr. Houman Hemmati on "Fox & Friends First."
"As a physician, the one thing that I'm taught, the one thing that we should all practice is evidence-based medicine, and the evidence-based decisions need to not just extend to the doctor-patient relationship, but also to policies that are made by politicians and public health boards."
"When those aren't done, we just have decisions that are made kind of flippantly with a disregard for the evidence that exists out there."
Newsom announced last week all children over 12 years old who are eligible must receive the vaccine in order to attend class. It will not allow a testing alternative.
The new policy will only become enforceable when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) places its official stamp of approval on the shot for children in certain age groups.
According to Dr. Hemmati, around 35 children have died in the state since the pandemic began, and while it is imperative to prevent that number from climbing, he also stressed the importance of addressing other areas of death in adolescence.
"We don't want to see even a single child die, but when you look at the numbers of deaths of children that have occurred as a result of other causes, you have many causes such as motor vehicle accidents, accidental injuries from bicycle accidents, drownings, poisonings, suicides, drug overdoses, homicides by gunshots- all exceeding this by an order of magnitude or greater."
"When you think about that, if schools really were a place where paternalistic medicine were to be practiced, where you would have a center of safety and health for children rather than just the Center for Education, wouldn't we be focusing on the true killers of kids that we just mentioned?" Dr. Hemmati questioned.
California is set to become the first state to require eligible children to become vaccinated in order to attend school in person.