Correction: This headline previously stated that vaccines would be required, however it would only require reporting of flu vaccinations for health care workers to the Oregon Health Authority.
By SCOTT JORGENSEN
Photo from Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
SALEM, Ore.-Although the Senate Health Care, Human Services and Rural Health Policy Committee only has 11 bills to consider in the short February legislative session, it still has more work to do on at least a few of them.
The committee met on Monday to revisit some bills introduced in the first week of the session. They included Senate Bill 1503, also known as the Influenza Prevention and Education Act.
If passed, SB 1503 would require health care workers to provide their employers with evidence of annual seasonal influenza vaccination or a written declaration that they denied the vaccine. SB 1503 also would require the health care employer to report to the Oregon Health Authority on the vaccination of health care workers.
Sen. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, a doctor, said he was concerned that a series of amendments to the bill do not “go far enough.”
Bates said that hospital staff still could expose patients to illness. For the first eight to ten days that somebody has a virus like influenza, Bates said, they do not show symptoms but can be contagious. Having the kind of registry required under SB 1503 would be a “good step in the right direction,” he said.
Under the bill, if health care facilities have not reached 80 percent flu vaccination level by 2014, they then could make the vaccinations a condition of employment. Bates described that provision as “reasonable.”
The H1N1, commonly referred to as the “swine flu”, scare that occurred a few years ago was a “near miss,” Bates said, that could have been an “absolute disaster” if not for public health efforts to widely distribute vaccines.
Sen. Jeff Kruse, R-Roseburg, said he did not see the issue of religious exemptions addressed in the bill. Bates replied that he “would be very open” to making that change in amendments to the bill.
Patty O’Sullivan, a contract lobbyist for the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (OAHHS), testified that a report released by George Washington University found that 20 states require health care workers to be vaccinated as a condition of employment.
But Jack Dempsey, assistant executive director of health policy and government relations for the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA), said that group opposes the new amendments offered to SB 1503.
Although not a member of the committee, Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Portland, was present for the hearing. Hayward, a doctor, asked why the bill only applies to nurses and not the entire staff, adding that anybody can transmit influenza.
Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson, D-Gresham, chair of the committee, closed the work session and agreed to carry SB 1503 over to the group’s Wednesday meeting.
Also carried over to the next meeting was SB 1506. That bill would create the Central Oregon Psychiatric Prescribing Program to allow the reimbursement of mental health drug costs using capitation payment methodology. Anderson said the bill’s proponents were still working on amendments for it.
The committee did advance some legislation, though. Senate Bill 1507 would remove the requirement that persons subjected to an HIV test give specific informed consent to the test.
An amendment was offered to the bill removing some liability for the labs performing the test, and Kruse moved to pass the bill out of committee with the amendment. That motion passed unanimously and will be carried on the Senate floor by Hayward.
A separate amendment had been offered by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon but was not adopted by the committee.
The headline is in error. Neither the bill nor the amendments require vaccination, only the accountability to communicate whether you have been vaccinated or not. Big difference.
The most important bill to thousands of families in Oregon living with autism is SB1568 that has a hearing scheduled for Friday, 2/10, at 3 pm. The Facebook page of Senator Monnes Anderson has a lot of comments from parents of autistic children urging her to allow a vote on SB1568 in her committee. The Health Care committee unanimously passed a version of this bill in 2011.
Wow, medical fascism lives on in Oregon…this Dr. Bates has clearly drank the big pharma Koolaid about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The FACTS are that they are minimally, if at all effective; the so-called science behind them is junk; and if you disagree with that… forcing anyone to take any drug/substance is a direct violation of their right to informed consent, and a violation of their civil rights. These compounds gave many serious side effects. The first rule of medicine is… DO NO HARM.
Sen. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, a doctor, seems to be living in a pharmaceutical dream. There was never a H1N1 pandemic. It was all hype to scare people into getting vaccinated. A pandemic never materialized even though the shots were pushed like crazy. How about Sen/Dr. Bates give up his government immunity to damage done by vaccines he administers.
I am in total disagreement with this “proposed” legislation. When the patents on several block buster drug expired the INTENTIONAL move was into “vaccines for everything”. The current set of tests for the current flu vaccines (on the inserts) note a close date of 2014. WE are the TEST subjects !! I say, Alan, go ahead, pop some mercury and an untested set of other ingredients if you like. Make sure those you “love” line up right behind you. Then, in 2014, we can check the results. And by then we’ll be on the road to the next batch of untested, unproven mercury dumps. Just please, remove the immunity from prosecution. Cars don’t get immunity. Trains, planes, etc don’t get immunity and we come in contact for possible harm with them all the time. Let me have the chance to hold them financially responsible for any mess they create, and make sure the CEO’s on down have PROOF of all their shots FIRST.
The Oregon Adult Immunization Coalition does not support this bill; declinations do not prevent the transmission of influenza to vulnerable patients in Oregon facilities. The only way to protect a vulnerable Oregonian from influenza is to prevent the disease (annual influenza immunization)OR do not breathe the same air as someone who is infected. Masks do not stop transmission of influenza unless they are respirator type masks and then they are only about 70% effective. Many facilities allow the masking option for unvacccinated staff, although the science does not prove this is effective. Lastly, people can spread influenza BEFORE they know they are infected, so staying home is not a good option (or a reality in the busy hospital setting). Check the facts, there are in fact required vaccinations for health care workers; influenza should be included in this category.
To make immunization a condition of employment is absurd. Not everyone can take the vaccine with out serious health repercussions. Can you imagine the outcry if health care professionals forced Morphine on all of the patients who had it listed as an allergy because of nausea and vomiting, which is actually a side effect and not a true allergy? The real prevention in fighting the flu, would cure most illness. Diet, exercise, sleep, and stress level. Basics that apparently society has lost sight of.