As public health officials work to tamp down a measles outbreak in the Portland metro area, Oregon lawmakers are preparing to take up legislation that would increase the number of children vaccinated for the disease.
Three out of four Americans older than 60 don’t get a shingles vaccine to protect themselves from the virus’ miseries: rashes over the face and body, stinging pain that can last for weeks or months and the threat of blindness.
The Senate Democrats and one Republican voted Tuesday to require all Oregon schools to share information about the school’s vaccination rate for preventable contagious diseases like polio and measles, providing parents with essential information to protect vulnerable children who cannot be vaccin
Health officials and parents who have lost children to the deadly meningococcal disease say the best way to prevent more young people from tragically dying from the disease is to get them vaccinated.
Update March 24:
The Senate passed SB 520 unanimously, sending the measure to the House.
------------------------------
Outbreaks of meningococcal disease keep popping up on college campuses across the country and attract plenty of media attention. But what doesn’t get much coverage is how different schools decide to offer vaccinations to their students.
Gov. Kate Brown pledged her support Friday for legislation that would eliminate non-medical excuses for not vaccinating school children, a measure pushed by physician Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Portland, amid a growing measles epidemic.
Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Portland, wants to eliminate all non-medical exemptions for school children to be vaccinated, and Wednesday she brought with her to the Oregon Senate Health Committee a drumbeat of support to her cause, including physician legislators from both political parties and a top state official who said his grandparents went deaf from infectious childhood diseases.
While it’s true that vaccination rates for schoolchildren in Oregon are among the lowest in the country, there is a finer point to consider: the risk of infection is not evenly distributed and is much more likely to be higher in private and charter schools.
The 2015 session will feature a new bill designed to tighten the vaccination exemptions for school children and protect the public against infectious disease after a 2013 law failed to do what lawmakers had intended.
