Baby's injury spurs bill on Vaccine

Why does it have to take the near-death of a newborn to bring enough pressure to bear to force lawmakers to require full information for parents? Shouldn't that be the status quo rather then a new and revolutionary idea? Why are we expected to offer up our precious children to be vaccinated without being fully informed of the risks and benefits? And it's no surprise that the people opposing this common-sense bill are the paediatricians. After all, it is not in their best financial interest to have informed patients as patients - too many 'inconvenient' questions arise.

Baby's injury spurs bill on vaccine

In 2009, Kyle and Sara Cox and their newborn son Zakkary had a close call. An apparent reaction to a hepatitis B vaccine gave Zakkary a stroke -- and could have sent his parents to jail.

The Coxes were lucky. Now Zakkary's grandmother, Tracy Kidd, is on a mission to make sure that other families don't have to go through what hers did.

She convinced state Rep. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, to introduce House Bill 2635, a bill requiring medical personnel to show parents the package insert about side effects that comes with the vaccine before administering it.

On Wednesday, she's going to Salem to testify before the Oregon House of Representatives' Health Care Committee in support of HB 2635.

But with the Oregon Pediatrics Society opposing the bill, she'll have a tough audience.