SENATE HEALTH, HUMAN SERVICES AND SENIOR CITIZENS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 1891

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED: MAY 8, 2003

      The Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee reports favorably and with committee amendments Senate Bill No. 1891.

      As amended by committee, this bill, which may be referred to as "Holly's Law," requires that prior to administering a second dose of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to a child, a health care provider shall give the child's parent or guardian the option of consenting to the administration of a blood test to determine whether or not the child has already developed immunity to MMR in response to the previously administered dose of the vaccine and, therefore, would not require the second. Documented laboratory evidence of immunity from MMR would exempt a child from further vaccination for those diseases.

      The bill requires the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services to prepare and make available to all health care providers in the State a pamphlet that explains the nature and purpose of the MMR vaccine and antibody titer used to determine immunity pursuant to the provisions of this bill. The commissioner is also required to send a copy of the pamphlet to every licensed health care provider in the State who administers the MMR vaccine, with a cover letter advising the health care provider that the pamphlet was prepared in accordance with the requirements of this bill, known as "Holly's Law," and how the health care provider can obtain additional copies of the pamphlet from the Department of Health and Senior Services.

      The current recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is that all children receive two doses of MMR vaccine separated by at least one month and administered on or after a child's first birthday. The purpose of the two-dose vaccination schedule is to produce immunity in the small proportion of persons (approximately 5%) who fail to respond immunologically to one or more of the components of the first dose. If a child had developed immunity to measles, mumps and rubella upon receiving the first dose of the vaccine, that fact would be revealed by a test of the level of antibodies to those viruses in the child's blood. 

      This bill honors the memory of Holly Marie Stavola, who died on February 4, 2000 of encephalopathy, encephalitis with resultant residual central nervous system impairment, which she developed following her second dose of MMR vaccine, by providing parents with the opportunity to avoid exposing their child to unnecessary vaccinations, without jeopardizing their child's immunity to disease or undermining public health in the State.

      The committee amended the bill to limit its provisions to the MMR vaccine and to delete the requirement that a health care provider give the child's parent or guardian a copy of the pamphlet prepared by the Department of Health and Senior Services prior to administering the second dose of the vaccine. The amendments require, instead, that the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services send a copy of the pamphlet to every licensed health care provider in the State who administers the MMR vaccine, with a cover letter advising the health care provider that the pamphlet was prepared in accordance with the requirements of the bill, and how the health care provider can obtain additional copies of the pamphlet from the department.

      This bill is similar to Assembly Bill No.2889 (Azzolina/Quigley), which is pending before the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee.