Washington, D.C. -- Despite many advances in modern medicine, each year thousands of Americans die from diseases that are easily prevented by safe and effective vaccines. Leading an effort in Congress to address this issue, Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard introduced "The THRIVE Act" today to strengthen public outreach efforts to educate adults about the importance of immunizations.
"Vaccines have been enormously successful in controlling infectious diseases, like polio, measles, diphtheria, German measles, and tetanus, which once reached epidemic
 (July 26, 2005) Washington, D.C. - To mark National Immunization Month in August, Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34) sponsored a legislative briefing on Capitol Hill about the importance of immunizations. As part of a panel that included speakers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Partnership for Immunization, the congresswoman spoke about a measure she authored called "The Thrive Act" which would strengthen public outreach efforts to educate adults about the importance of immunizations. The congresswoman is pictured at the briefing with Sophie Starcevic (on right), a teenager who spoke about her battle to recover from whooping cough, a vaccine-preventable disease that she contracted last year. |
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a significant number of at-risk adults are under-immunized for diseases such as influenza, pneumonia and hepatitis B. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices makes recommendations for adult immunizations that include: Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, influenza, measles-mumps-rubella, meningitis, pneumonia, tetnus-diptheria, and chickenpox. These vaccines prevent diseases that affect millions of adults every year - diseases that can lead to hospitalization and death. The CDC estimates that the overall cost to society from these preventable diseases exceeds $10 billion per year.
"There is a real need for comprehensive legislation to overhaul the way we administer, finance, and plan future adult immunization programs for underserved groups such as seniors, minorities and individuals who are at high risk due to pre-existing serious health problems. Although we have highly effective vaccines that will prevent death and disability and save billions of dollars in health costs annually, they can't work if they aren't reaching those who need them most," Congresswoman Roybal-Allard said.
To help make our nation's vaccination programs more effective, Congresswoman Roybal-Allard introduced H.R. 3598, the "Total Health Requires Improved Vaccination Efforts (THRIVE) Act of 2005." This legislation would provide separate funding under the immunization program administered by the CDC to strengthen adult immunization outreach efforts, to develop and distribute adult immunization guidelines to health practitioners and state agencies and to develop and launch a national media campaign to educate Americans about the value of adult immunizations. It would also provide funding for a four- state demonstration project to meet the needs of underserved, at-risk, adult populations. Finally, the measure requires the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to consider adding adult immunization to the criteria used to evaluate hospitals and health care plans for participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Congresswoman Roybal-Allard continued, "The pneumonia and flu vaccines are extremely important for our senior citizens. Pneumonia and Influenza together are the sixth leading cause of death among older adults, and these are deaths that are largely preventable simply by increasing the numbers of adults that are immunized. The THRIVE Act of 2005 will save many lives lost each year due to preventable illnesses by closing the gap between our national immunization goals and the actual rates of adult immunization in this country."