Oregon House Bill 2635

Dear Oregon NVIC Advocacy Team Members,

HB 2635 provides that person may not administer immunization against hepatitis B to child under 10 years of age unless person has provided parent or guardian with vaccine package insert containing information on risks of immunization and parent or guardian has consented in writing to immunization of child.  It declares and emergency and is effective on passage.
Here is what you can do to help:
1)      EVERYONE: Please forward this email note to everyone you know, especially those in Oregon, and post the link to this alert on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media sites. http://nvicadvocacy.org/members/Resources/NewsletterArchives/List/ORHB2635.aspx
2)      OREGON RESIDENTS:  Immediately contact your own Oregon State Representative and Senator asking them to Support HB2635.  You can log on to your Oregon state page on http://NVICAdvocacy.org to view the following talking points and be linked directly to your state legislators.
3)      OREGON RESIDENTS: Contact the members of the House Committee on Health Care urging them to vote in favor of HB2635. Committee members are listed below.
Background on HB 2635
Baby's injury spurs bill on vaccine
By Gail Elber, The World | Posted: Saturday, February 19, 2011 11:00 am
In 2009, Kyle and Sara Cox and their newborn son Zakkary had a close call. An apparent reaction to a hepatitis B vaccine gave Zakkary a stroke -- and could have sent his parents to jail.
The Coxes were lucky. Now Zakkary's grandmother, Tracy Kidd, is on a mission to make sure that other families don't have to go through what hers did.
She convinced state Rep. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, to introduce House Bill 2635, a bill requiring medical personnel to show parents the package insert about side effects that comes with the vaccine before administering it.
On Wednesday, she's going to Salem to testify before the Oregon House of Representatives' Health Care Committee in support of HB 2635.
Talking Points
HB 2635 is needed consumer education legislation for parents who want to make a fully informed decision on the Hepatitis B vaccine for any child under the age of 10.  
•             Current Vaccine Information Sheets (VIS) for the Hep B vaccine are inadequate and fail to provide the necessary information to make an informed decision on this vaccination. This bill simply requires the same type of side effect information to be given to parents that television watchers and periodical readers receive in a typical drug company add for other pharmaceutical products.
•             There are over 45 different Hepatitis B vaccine reactions identified in the medical literature and also included in the product insert that are not mentioned in the VIS for the Hep B vaccine, including those suffered by Zakkary. They include: vasculopathies, vaccine-induced autoimmunity, poly neuropathy, cerebral hemorrhages, pulmonary bleeding and CNS demyelination. 
•             Hepatitis B is a rare, mainly blood-transmitted disease. In 1996 only 54 cases of the disease were reported to the CDC in the 0-1 age group, Zakkary's age group. There were 3.9 million births that year, so the observed incidence of Hepatitis B in the 0-1 age group was just 0.001 percent. 
•             Enacting this legislation will go a long way to prevent future Zakkarys, whose parents will be given all the information to truly give "informed consent" to a procedure which carries significant risk of injury for some children.
Contact Information
Use the action alert posted on the NVIC Advocacy Portal Oregon state page to see your personal legislators’ names and contact information automatically displayed.
Committee Membership:
Mitch Greenlick, Co-Chair              503-986-1433
Jim Thompson, Co-Chair              503-986-1423
Ben Cannon, Co-Vice Chair          503-986-1446
Bill Kennemer, Co-Vice Chair       503-986-1439
Margaret Doherty                              503-986-1435
Val Hoyle                                             503-986-1414
Julie Parrish                                        503-986-1437
Jim Weidner                                       503-986-1424