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Washington Rep. Kim Schrier pitching vaccine education bill

Congresswoman Kim Schrier says targeted information about vaccines needed in specific communities

Pediatrician and Congresswoman Kim Schrier is pushing a federal bill to expand education and reporting around vaccinations.

The VACCINES Act, as it has been dubbed, has bipartisan support and was introduced in May, as the measles outbreak continued to expand nationwide. 

“People should be freaking out, this is a serious disease that is 100% preventable and here we are. It's like going back a century in medicine,” Schier said from her district on Monday.  

The Issaquah Democrat said her bill would allow for targeted information campaigns, and allow the CDC to expand it’s research on areas where vaccines are not commonplace. Schrier specifically cited Southwest Washington, which has a pocket of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants that were tied to an Eastern European strain of the disease.  

“That community, naturally, would not trust information from a government because, look where they came from right?” She said the bill would allow for a designated person to educate the community about the risks, and information about the vaccine at the same time.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade, the Chief of Pediatrics at Swedish Hospital in Seattle, believes the bill could provide "some funding for education and for researching what are the barriers for vaccination.”  

Meade agrees with the CDC recommendation that parents wait until a child is at least one-year-old to get their first dose of MMR — or 6-months-old if the baby lives where there is an outbreak, epidemic, or a country where measles is widespread. There have already been over 1,000 confirmed measles cases nationwide since January 1, 2019. 

New parents Chelsea and Aaron Roney are the parents of 11-month-old Kate and say they’ve been worried over the course of the outbreak.  

“Because (Kate) found herself at Swedish for a couple of other issues,” said mom Chelsea.  “It was a real emotional conversation between us (about whether to vaccinate).”  

But they didn’t hesitate about their family decision on whether baby Kate will get the vaccine. Dad Aaron said, “On her birthday, no less." 

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