October 1, 2010

Breaking News – Governor Vetoes Hepatitis Bills

Posted on October 1, 2010

From our friends at Cal Hep:

Late in the evening on September 30th, two hours before deadline to sign or veto bills, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed two bills that would have reduced the number of new HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C cases. Having worked to develop, draft and support these bills, the staff and member organizations of the California Hepatitis Alliance (calHEP) are extremely disappointed by this news. The Governor’s Office chose to ignore the recommendations of numerous medical and scientific bodies, including the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Medicine and Science, and his own administration’s Department of Public Health to make syringes more widely available through pharmacies and needle exchanges in order to reduce the number of viral hepatitis infections among injection drug users.

Governor Schwarzenegger did sign a bill to sustain the status quo: cities and counties may authorize pharmacists to furnish 10 or fewer syringes to an adult, and cities and counties may authorize syringe exchange services. Currently almost half of Californians live in jurisdictions where there is no safe legal access to sterile syringes without a prescription, and where law enforcement may arrest a person for attempting to comply with the U.S. Public Health service recommendation to injection drug users that they use a new sterile syringe for each injection. Contact CalHEP for information on how to support your local efforts to improve syringe access.

VETOED: SB 1029 by State Senator Leland Yee would have allowed pharmacists and physicians to furnish 30 or fewer syringes without prescription and would have allowed adults to possess up to 30 for personal use.

VETOED: AB 1858 would have allowed California Department of Public Health to authorized syringe exchange services in locations where the conditions exist for the rapid spread of viral hepatitis, HIV and other deadly or disabling diseases spread by the sharing of syringes.

Both bills were supported by California Medical Association, California Nurses Association, Health Officers Association of California, as well as numerous health and patient advocacy groups. We are grateful to the work of Drug Policy Alliance and San Francisco AIDS Foundation in providing support for the lobbying effort throughout the year. We are especially grateful to Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield (D-Van Nuys) and their offices for leading these life saving efforts.We encourage you to contact the lawmakers to thank them for their commitment to improving California’s health.

CalHEP will continue to fight for evidence-based policies and programs to reduce the burden of the hepatitis B and C epidemics in California. We thank those of you who contacted your legislators and the Governor to encourage support for these bills.

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