1 week Ago By CARLY GRAF [email protected]
Recent actions by the Montana Legislature could undermine future efforts to track the spread of contagious diseases, though some say it’s a risk worth taking in the name of privacy protections. Supported by the Department of Public Health and Human Services, would have made school districts submit annual immunization reports to the state health agency so it could better track the spread of contagious diseases. It was tabled in a Senate committee earlier this month.
Montana is currently the that does not submit aggregate, anonymized information about public school student immunizations and exemptions to the federal government, a casualty of 2021 legislation that struck from state law the requirement that schools send the vaccination data they collect to DPHHS. Democratic Rep. Melody Cunningham from Missoula pitched HB 364 as the way to reinstate what had previously been the norm in Montana.
It would have required schools to give DPHHS an annual vaccine report along with the number of exemptions granted. The bill would not require the agency to pass any of that information to the feds. Before being put aside by the Senate Education Committee, HB 364 spurred testimony from medical professionals and state public health officials who said better information flow between schools and DPHHS would improve readiness in the event of contagious disease outbreaks.
Cunningham, who has been a doctor for roughly three decades, said collecting vaccine data and making it available to the public allows people to make thoughtful decisions about how to best care for themselves and their loved ones. Should the ongoing Texas measles outbreak make its way up to Montana, for example, DPHHS could publish immunization reports that show what share of a community is vaccinated and, therefore, how resistant it might be to disease spread. Seniors, those with compromised immune systems and others could then determine how to best keep themselves from getting sick.
“Good data helps us all make better decisions,” said Sophia Newcomer, an associate professor of epidemiology at University of Montana who spoke on behalf of herself during the committee hearing. Though Cunningham tweaked the bill to strengthen data anonymity and clarify it would comply with federal student privacy laws, people still worried their private personal medical decisions would be made public. Sen.
Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls, said “sending people’s personal medical information everywhere” wouldn’t achieve the goals supporters laid out. Similar concerns sank the bill during its first hearing in the House Human Services Committee in February, but it was revived with bipartisan support after Cunningham added the additional layers of privacy. She changed the reporting metrics to be broken down by school rather than school grade, with all the exemption types folded into a single category instead of being broken out individually.
Especially in smaller rural districts, the approach would help to keep community members from being able to identify people from the data. It was enough to get HB 364 out of the House committee and advanced from the chamber on a bipartisan 66-31 vote before it was later tabled in the Senate. If the bill remains tabled through the end of the session, Montana will continue to be the lone state where schools don’t report immunization numbers to state health authorities.
Conversations about vaccines became more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the anti-vaccine movement gained new prominence with the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the federal health department.
Kennedy has a long track record of vaccine skepticism, but has recently walked back some of his comments about the efficacy of the measles-mumps-rubella shot. Lawmakers tabled another bill related to vaccines Thursday, one that would have created a new, broader vaccine exemption category called “informed consent” that day care facilities and public schools would have been required to accept. Emrich’s would have mandated licensed day cares to admit students who aren’t vaccinated to age-appropriate levels against diseases like polio, hepatitis B and meningitis if they fell into this new category.
Supporters said more flexible vaccine exemptions options were needed for parents whose children don’t qualify for medical or religious excusals but might have reason to be selective about which vaccines they choose to give their kids. Child care advocates turned out in full force to oppose the bill. They said it would put employees at risk and discourage families from putting young kids in day care for fear they’d be exposed to contagious diseases before they are old enough to get all the vaccines to protect themselves.
DPHHS and the Department of Labor and Industry did not support the bill, in part, they said, because "informed consent" could make the state ineligible for around $40 million every year in federal dollars that bolster the child care industry. “People may find it hard to find a child care setting, but that’s true for all families,” said Grace Decker of Montana Advocates for Children. “Requiring all people to accept exemptions in the same way means families who would prefer full immunization for their child no longer have that choice available to them.
” SB 474 was tabled in the House Appropriations Committee after having passed the Senate and House Judiciary Committee. Multiple Republicans sided with Democrats in a 7-16 vote to stop the bill’s progress..
