Introduced by Assembly Member Akilah Weber (Principal coauthor: Senator Pan) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Low and Wicks) (Coauthors: Senators Newman and Wiener)
This bill would authorize health care providers and other agencies, including schools, childcare facilities, family childcare homes, and county human services agencies to perform immunization status assessments of pupils, adults, and clients until January 2026.
Existing law also permits health care providers and other agencies, including school,
childcare facilities and county welfare agencies to disclose specified information from the
patient’s medical or client’s records to local health departments operating countywide or regional immunization registries and the Department of Public Health. This bill makes disclosure of this information a requirement and adds race and ethnicity to the required information.
POSTED: June 10, 2022
STATUS: Senate Health Committee - hearing 6/22/2022
POSITION: Oppose
Thoughts for consideration:
· Providing for an immunizations status assessment and then disclosing this information is a serious infringement of person or child’s private information.
· Though the bill allows for parents to refuse having their child’s information input into a vaccine database, the opportunity for errors is abundant. Participation should be opt-in rather than an opt-out.
· While the federal HIPPA law presumably protects a person’s health information from being breached or exposed, this required disclosure greatly increases that possibility.