-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Legislature ends effort to add required vaccines By ED FLETCHER Scripps-McClatchy Western Service July 13, 2001 SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The state Legislature has turned away efforts to add two new vaccines to those currently required for children entering California preschools or kindergarten amid questions about the state's process for approving new immunizations. Legislation rejected by the Senate Heath and Human Services Committee last week would have required vaccines for hepatitis A and bacterial meningitis before children entered preschool or kindergarten. Most scientists and lawmakers agree they are both effective vaccines. But Sen. Deborah Ortiz, the committee chairwoman, questioned whether there is a need to mandate their use - and whether a legislative committee hearing is the best way to find out. At her urging, the committee decided to hold a separate hearing on vaccines between legislative sessions. The decision to force all children take a vaccine needs careful consideration and more discussion than possible in committee hearings, she said. "It really isn't the way we should be making public policy," said Ortiz, D-Sacramento. "I really thought we needed a big-picture discussion." After a period of 14 years when no new vaccines were mandated by the state, the Legislature has since 1994 added three vaccines to the list of diseases for which children must be immunized. Vaccines for diphtheria, measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, rubella and tetanus have been approved for use since the 1960s and were made a school entry requirement between 1961 and 1980. The Haemophilus influenzae Type B or HIB vaccine was introduced for infants in 1994. The hepatitis B vaccine became required July 1997 as a result of legislation passed in 1995. On July 1, chicken pox vaccines became required as a result of legislation passed in 1999. As the advent of biotechnology spurs vaccine development and the Legislature is asked to decide the appropriateness of new vaccines, Ortiz is among those who wonder whether the fast-paced and highly politicized world of the Capitol is the best forum for answering scientific and medical questions. While legislative staffers spend hours analyzing proposed legislation, lawmakers themselves - who consider more than a thousand bills each year - spend far less time mulling would-be laws. Presentations at committee hearings are often limited for five minutes, forcing lawmakers to lean heavily on the analysis prepared by committee staff. Often handfuls of potential speakers are simply asked to identify their organization and whether they are for or against the bill. When the administration has not taken a position on legislation, department officials answer technical questions but don't offer an opinion. In the case of the vaccine bills, for example, health services officials did not say whether they believe mandating a new vaccine would be a good idea. The decision not to mandate hepatitis A vaccinations was a close call. >From 1987 to 1997, the state's hepatitis A incidence rate, at 20 cases per 100,000 people, barely reached the federal Center for Disease Control threshold for recommending routine vaccination of children. A CDC advisory group has recommended states with incidence rates twice the national average or 20 cases per 100,000 routinely vaccinate children. Since 1997, the state hepatitis A incidence rate has dropped steadily, now standing around eight per 100,000. The drop is largely attributed to voluntary use of the vaccination, though bill supporters warn of the disease's cyclical nature. The hepatitis A legislation, AB 182, carried by Assemblyman Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, was approved by a 76-1 vote in the Assembly before it stalled in the Senate. While the decision to avoid making the vaccine mandatory may not sit well with proponents, one health care association hailed the legislative inaction. "The vaccine is a good vaccine, but the bottom line is that it is working the way we are doing it right now," said Bruce Pomer, executive director of the Health Officers Association of California. Pomer said he was surprised that in the face of heavy lobbying from the company that produces the vaccine the committee did not pass the bill mandating hepatitis A vaccinations. "(GlaxoSmithKline) was hell bent to try to get this through," Pomer said. "It restores my faith in the system." The company did not sponsor the legislation, as they did in years past, but was active in lobbying for the bill. Company officials did not return telephone calls. AB 1354, requiring children be given a pneumococcus vaccine to prevent bacterial meningitis and other types of infections was carried by Anthony Pescetti, R-Rancho Cordova. It was approved by the Assembly on a 77-0 vote before it was stopped in the Senate committee. Dawn Winkler and her association California Vaccine Awareness had their own reasons for opposing the legislation. Winkler, who believes her daughter's death was the result of a reaction to childhood vaccines, is among a growing contingency of parents, activists and researchers who suggest there is a correlation between increased rates of asthma, diabetes, allergies, autism in children and the increasing number of vaccines given to children. However, most within the scientific community still agree that vaccines are safe. Winkler called the decision to hold off mandating new vaccines a major victory. "If they passed it they would have passed it with very little information. Let's have three-hour hearing and make an informed decision," Winkler said. "We hope that this will lead to a fair process (not only) with this bill, but other vaccine mandates to come." There is an alternative process for mandating vaccines through the state Department of Health and Human Services, one Ortiz calls a "science-based medical decision making process." But that process has seldom been used and has never been successful in mandating new vaccines, said Loring Dales, who advised the committee on behalf of state department of health services. Any attempt by heath services to change vaccines would still have to go though administrative hearings, the Department of Finance and the governor, Dales said. Dales said the legislative route has been more effective and might be more appropriate. In the meantime, Alan Brownstein, president and CEO of the American Liver Foundation, which sponsored AB 182, said he did not understand why the committee balked at the hepatitis A vaccine. "It does not serve us well to be lulled into complacency," Brownstein said, noting that history has shown hepatitis A to be a cyclical disease. "It's a vaccine-preventable disease," Brownstein said. "People say it's gone, but it is not." *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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