Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Holds Hearing on Smallpox Vaccination Plan
FDCH TRANSCRIPTS
Congressional Hearings
Jan. 30, 2003
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Holds Hearing on Smallpox Vaccination Plan
REED:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding the hearing, thank you, Dr. Gerberding and Dr. Fauci. Three critical issues, and the leader illustrated many of them: safety, cost and compensation. And, Dr. Fauci, you talked a great deal about the safety, but let me for a moment talk about cost. The state health departments now are challenged to engage this program. They also have ongoing responsibilities for vaccination, immunization of children. In my state, about $250,000 are committed to in a tough budget time. I wonder if there's any thought, Dr. Gerberding or Dr. Fauci, to help out the states with this program directly with aid assistance.
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REED:
Given that gap, are you also going to look closely at the maintenance of effort on other vaccine programs, immunization programs so that we don't have a situation where the states are literally robbing Peter to pay Paul?
GERBERDING:
Absolutely. We're very concerned about the overall situation of public health at the state and local level. This, as Senator Frist mentioned, is a system that has suffered from long-term neglect, and the investments that we're making right now are helping but we are dealing with a very fragile public health system, and we are concerned that all of the efforts that we're putting in terrorism preparedness right now must serve a dual function. We must make sure that these investments also support ongoing public health issues, such as vaccination of children or long-term imperatives that are part of our overall mission.
REED:
Let me ask a question with regard to compensation. Is CDC or anyone looking at the relationship between workers' compensation program in the various states and someone contracting thisa health care worker, for example, contracting a side effect base on the vaccination? And also the private insurance coverage for a situation like this, is that being fully explored carefully?
GERBERDING:
No. We believe that we must make sure that the people who participate in this program have appropriate and fair compensation if they're injured as a result of it, and we will do whatever we can to make this program successful in that light.
We have been working with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officer to assess what is the current status of compensation programs, and it varies very much from state to state. It also varies from facility to facility or employer to employer.
Many people do have good coverage, some people don't, and many people are concerned that they could fall through the cracks of compensation. So we've very concerned about this, and we're obviously trying to learn as much as we can about what gaps exist in this program so we can identify options for filling them.
REED:
Mr. Chairman, I have one additional question if I may?
GREGG:
OK.
REED:
My understanding is that the reporting of adverse events is a relatively passive system. It requires someone to take the initiative to report it. With respect to the safety considerations, are you looking at a more active monitoring of immunizations and adverse reactions, something more than you have at the moment? And maybe, Dr. Fauci, you can comment on that, because I would assume you want to validate those statistics of two deaths in a million and et cetera?