Committee advances vaccine bill

BOISE — An Idaho House committee voted Monday to move along a bill that would make the state’s immunization registry an opt-in program, rather than opt-out.

The Health and Welfare Committee voted to send HB 397 to the full House for a vote.

The bill sponsor, House Majority Leader Megan Blanksma, R-Hammett, said she chose to opt her children out of the registry but found out they had been opted back in without her knowledge.

“I was furious,” she said, “and I told them I didn’t want my kids to be in this system.”

She said that when the registry was enacted in 1999, it was an opt-in program. In 2010, the Legislature passed a bill to make it opt-out. She argued that it’s hard to opt-out and people may not realize they’ve been put back in the registry, which is called the Idaho Immunization Reminder Information System, or IRIS. The bill would also limit registry information to children’s data, not adults.

Health care providers testified in opposition to the bill, citing concerns over increased costs with changing the way the registry works and a potential for more limited access to immunization data.

Cristina Abuchaibe, a pediatric cardiologist speaking on behalf of Idaho Children Are Primary and the Idaho chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said changing the system might be too expensive for some small, rural clinics.

She argued that IRIS works well now and shouldn’t be changed.

“We have a concern that the system we have in place is actually not broken, it’s working very well, and it’s not affecting the parents’ rights to be able to make a decision,” Abuchaibe said.

Blanksma said it shouldn’t cost clinics more because they are already entering the information into the registry.

Those who choose to opt into the registry would need to submit a written statement.

Grace Howat, from the Idaho Family Policy Center, testified in support of the bill.

She argued the current system “intrudes on the privacy of its citizens and undermines parental rights.”

Rebecca Coyle, executive director for the American Immunization Registry Association, testified against the bill, also arguing it would be expensive and difficult to make the change. She noted that more than 1,000 clinics are connected to IRIS.

“Today’s medical systems are geared for an opt-out option, meaning that a patient has to talk to the state in order to get their information out of the system,” Coyle said. “To add consent fields to every single one of those thousand systems is going to be costly.”

She argued that there’s “no chance” for clinics to make the switch by the July 1 implementation date in the bill.

Blanksma said the opposition to the bill was that doctors thought it was inconvenient to implement, but argued the legislation was needed because people aren’t being informed well enough that their data is being collected.

“I think that’s what should scare us more than anything else,” Blanksma said, “is that there is data collection going on that people don’t know about, are completely unaware, and that’s what this bill fixes.”

Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene, made a motion to send the bill to the House floor.

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, made a substitute motion to hold HB 397 in committee. She said she didn’t want to disregard the health care providers’ concerns that it would be costly and difficult to implement.

The motion died, with only Democrats Rubel, Rep. Nate Roberts of Pocatello, and Majorie Wilson, who is substituting for Rep. Sue Chew, D-Boise, voting for it.

The original motion to send the bill to the floor for a full vote with a “do pass recommendation” passed on a party line vote.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on X, formerly Twitter, @EyeOnBoiseGuido.