pTitle: Important Epinephrine Legislation Pending /p
pOn Wednesday, April 11, 2001, there will be a hearing in front of thebr /
Healthcare committee to discuss House Bill 1757. This bill will require allbr /
EMTs to carry and use epinephrine. Currently, each town/districts emergencybr /
services decide if they will carry and administer epinephrine. /p
pThis bill was filed by Rep. David Donnelly from Boston. His office has askedbr /
me to get together a panel of parents to tell the Healthcare Committee howbr /
this legislation would affect our lives. The hearing is at 10am at thebr /
statehouse in boston, room A1. We would only each have about 3 minutes tobr /
speak. /p
pPlease consider coming to this important event. REMEMBER: only people like usbr /
really care about this legislation, and it can be life-and-death for us andbr /
our loved ones. Help us to put a human face on this to convey to ourbr /
legislators how important this is. Contact me via email at [email]nclaplaca@aol.com[/email] (send a copy to [email]legislation@PeanutAllergy.Com[/email])br /
if you can come. Thanks! /p
p/p
pStay Safe,/p
p[email]Chris@PeanutAllergy.Com[/email]/p
pHome page: [url="http://www.PeanutAllergy.Com"]http://www.PeanutAllergy.Com[/url]/p
US/MA/Important Epinephrine Legislation Pending/April 11, 2001 hearing
Posted on: Thu, 04/05/2001 - 1:06am
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My daughter Madeline and I will be attending this hearing. Rep Donnelly and I were just interviewed on TV about this legislation and how important it is (my 2 1/2 year old is PA). The interview will be aired on Channel 56 (the WB) on their morning program on Tuesday April 10th at 7am. We asked for it to aired the day before the vote so that others may call in or show up to support this bill.
We will be there to show our support.
Shandra Sibley
Here is the wording for House Bill 1757. It is short because it is an amendment to an existing law. I will edit this message with additional info when I get it.
FYI: "Above listed personnel" is as follows:
ambulance operators and attendants
police and fire (not desk duty)
state police on highway patrol
permanent or temporary public lifeguards
emergency reserve units of volunteer fire departments
SECTION 1: The first paragraph of section 201 of chapter 111 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 1998 Official Edition, is hereby amended by adding the following paragraph:
Additionally, the above listed emergency personnel shall carry epinephrine, and shall be trained in the usage and administration of said epinephrine.
SECTION 2: The first paragraph of section 6 of chapter 111C of the General Laws, as appearing in the 1998 Official Edition, is hereby amended by adding the following sentance:
The training shall also include the administration of epinephrine.
[This message has been edited by Chris LaPlaca (edited April 13, 2001).]
I just want to note there are other threads on this Massachusetts Epi legislation bill and the one I just checked was started in December of 2000.
Here is text from an email we received. It is in response to the email that we sent out to the list the night before the hearing as a "reminder" to those who planned on going (and to possibly find a few more people who might be able to go on short notice)
>>
She wrote>>
As a resident of Massachusetts who doesn't live far from the State House, I definitely would have considered attending this meeting if I had been informed of it with reasonable advance notice. I don't see the point of informing people at 11:02 PM regarding a meeting at 10 a.m the next day.
>>
Here was my reply, and it is a good reminder to all of us to be sure we all remember to stay up to date with the posts on these PeanutAllergy.Com Discussion Boards. It is not meant in any way to be negative towards the sender of the email. We encourage everyone's input on our work and the issues we face. I hope it comes across the way it was meant. I am aware of how busy many of us are, and that sometimes people find there is not enough time in their lives to read all the posts (since their last visit).
>>
I wrote in reply to her email>>
>>Thanks *** for your comments,
As you may be aware, we work hard to organize our community (as you can tell as I am still at it and it is after midnight, with many more hours of work ahead). There are many, many issues we are working on from labeling to finding a cure and we are very busy. This is one reason we host the discussion boards, so those working on an issue or who find something can let others interested in that subject know "in real time".
We wanted to get an email out to the list earlier regarding this hearing, but were unable, this is one reason we suggest everyone stays current with the discussion boards. The boards are normally where we will post important information first.
We sent the email out the night before to serve as a reminder for those who planned to attend this hearing, (and to hopefully find a few more that might have been able to go on short notice). We also thought it would help to bring awareness to others in different parts of the world about why this type of legislation is needed. In response to this reminder email we sent-We have already received lots of inquiries from families in other states in the USA re: wanting information or wanting to work on Epi legislation where they live.
Our volunteers with the help of this office worked to bring awareness of this pending legislation to our community, companies, and other organizations, to be sure they knew of this legislation in case they wanted to support the bill. We worked to inform people who might want to attend the hearing and we checked with those we thought might want to support such a bill, like the makers of Epi-Pen, to be sure they knew about the hearing. (They told the person we put in touch with them that they were unaware of the hearing until we contacted them).
There are many posts on the discussion boards regarding this and other important actions which usually are posted with plenty of time to make arrangements, hopefully you will now know to check out the boards more often to see the issues which you may decide to work on. We don't want people to only rely on receiving an email from us, as they may then miss something which comes up "in real time" on the PeanutAllergy.Com Discussion Boards. For an example there may be a story on a television show which someone posts about as the story is airing or only a few hours before it airs. We do what we can to let everyone know of important issues but once in a while there may be something that we are not able to email everyone about in time.
I am glad you emailed us with your comments. We are already working on an email which we can send out to our list that will serve to remind everyone to stay current with the PeanutAllergy.Com discussion boards. Now you can see how important it is to stay up to date with the posts on the boards. As you know there is a lot going on which effects the peanut allergy community, this is one of the many reasons that we have created this communication center. This resource helps us to keep our community as informed as possible and does much more such as to help organize our community, and put people in contact with others working on similar issues.
We recently started a "Take Action" board to help everyone locate (and post) important actions they may want to work on. Be sure to check out this "new" forum next time you visit the discussion boards (I will post a link to the list of forums on the boards below).
We like to let everyone know about an issue as far in advance as possible, however because of the nature of the work we are doing and the amount of money it takes to do it, we are not able to do all we would like. This is one of the reasons we are doing a "charter member" drive to help us raise the money needed to work on the ever growing issues.
I hope you will accept this invitation to become a "charter member". You can contact us by email, telephone, regular mail or fax to let us know you "are determined to make a difference" and want to become a "Charter Member" of PeanutAllergy.Com.
Help us help you. Together we are making a big difference!
HERE IS CONTACT INFORMATION FOR YOU TO BECOME A MEMBER, CHARTER MEMBER, AND WHERE TO SEND YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT AND DONATIONS.
Contact info [url="http://www.peanutallergy.com/contactus.htm"]http://www.peanutallergy.com/contactus.htm[/url]
Link to another thread on this topic
[url="http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/Forum19/HTML/000021.html"]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/Forum19/HTML/000021.html[/url]
------------------
Stay Safe,
[email]"Chris@PeanutAllergy.Com"[/email]
The hearing on Wednesday went very well.
The committee was very patient and listened to a lot of testimony, all of it in favor of this legislation. There were approximately 18 people who testified. Some were doctors (cardiologist, allergists, er physicians), some were pharmacists, some were with non-profit groups (FAAN and AAFA were represented) and some were parents.
Especially touching were two Massachusetts moms who had lost their teenage children to anaphylaxis. They were very brave and testified to protect all children.
The joint committee will now examine this and decide whether or not to recommend it to the house to consider.
The committee was concerned about where the funding for the supply of epipens and the trainging would come from.
If I hear anything, I will post. Anyone else, please do the same. Thanks.