I have written a book on the politics of autism policy. Building on this research, this blog offers insights, analysis, and facts about recent events. If you have advice, tips, or comments, please get in touch with me at jpitney@cmc.edu
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Showing posts with label state legislatures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label state legislatures. Show all posts
Individuals on the autism spectrum have been stigmatized as not being expected to engage in certain activities, such as interpersonal interaction and communication, which are related to the capacity to exercise leadership and may have implications for their capacity to effectively function in political roles. In this paper, we profile four politicians (who happen to be state legislators) with autism who have beaten the odds with electoral success. We examine their routes to office, their range of activities, including how they represent autism, and the intersectionalities (in addition to autism) that impact their lives.
From the article:
More specifically, we profile four state legislators who self-identify as on the autism spectrum. Jessica Benham and Abigail Salisbury (both Democrats) currently represent the 36th and 34th districts, respectively, in Pennsylvania. Benham was first elected in 2020, and Salisbury in a special election in 2022. Briscoe Cain (R), in office since 2017, represents the 128th district in Texas and is running for Congress in one of the areas involved in the current mid-stream redistricting controversies. Yuh-Line Niou (D) represented the 65th district in New York between 2017 and 2022, when she engaged in what turned out to be an unsuccessful run for Congress. While these are the only elected officials our searches turned up as identified as autistic, as Cain’s story below shows, autism, under some circumstances, can be an invisible disability if or until an individual chooses to “come out.” Given the stigma, the choice not to divulge may make sense for many. Despite the notable stereotypes attached to people on the autism spectrum and acknowledging that the people studied here are “highly functioning,” these four legislators have, nonetheless, by virtue of their political careers, taken on leadership roles. As such, they are involved in the many and varied activities generally engaged in by state legislators. We focus below on their backgrounds/roots to political office, their “autism journey,” their activities as state representatives, and the several intersectionalities that are part of their lives.
Purple Alerts are a public notification system designed to help locate adults with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities who have gone missing. These individuals are not currently covered by existing alert systems, such as Amber Alerts or Silver Alerts.
Addressing a critical gap in existing state alert systems, Purple Alerts ensure that intellectually disabled adults who are reported missing receive appropriate attention and that the public is aware of the specific circumstances.
Currently, only five states (Florida, Maryland, Kansas, Mississippi, and Connecticut) have enacted Purple Alert systems.
Purple Alerts can also inform law enforcement about the nature of a missing person’s disability. This can help enable a more appropriate and calm interaction when the person is located.
Clear standards for danger Families and law enforcement currently lack consistent guidance on when a missing person is truly endangered. SB 6070 clearly defines high-risk situations, including when someone has a developmental disability, dementia, serious mental health crisis, suicidal ideation, or other conditions that prevent safe self-care.
Faster action when it counts The bill clarifies when courts may authorize rapid action to locate a missing endangered person, ensuring help is not delayed by uncertainty during life-threatening situations.
Focus on the most vulnerable SB 6070 centers those at the greatest risk when missing, including minors, vulnerable adults, people with developmental disabilities, individuals experiencing acute mental health crises, and people with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias.
Strong guardrails and accountability This bill includes strict limits on how tools may be used, requires court approval or rapid post-use judicial review in emergencies, limits data collection to what is necessary, and requires deletion of non-relevant information. The focus remains on recovery and safety, not surveillance.
The proposal was inspired by the disappearance of 21-year-old Jonathan Hoang, who has the mental capacity of a 9-year-old and vanished last March. His family believes foul play may be involved. “It’s very likely he was abducted,” said his sister, Irene Pfister.
For nearly a year, the Hoang family has lived without answers. “They told me and my parents, ‘It’s not a crime to go missing,’” said Pfister. She described the emotional toll of his disappearance, saying, “Just to wake up one morning and someone you love, they’re gone with no, no sign, no trace, and like, it’s like he’s disappeared off the face of the Earth.”
Although adults with autism who go missing in Washington are eligible for an Endangered Missing Persons Advisory, Hoang’s case highlights what his family sees as confusion around how and when those alerts are used. “I think there is this misunderstanding,” Pfister said, noting that autism “is a spectrum, and it’s called a spectrum for a reason.”
In Hoang’s case, an Endangered Missing Persons Advisory (EMPA) was issued on the fifth day after his disappearance. Pfister believes hesitation stemmed from uncertainty over her brother’s cognitive abilities. “Despite our family sharing that he wouldn’t be able to get home,” she said.
The sheriff's office said the EMPA "does not trigger a mass notification system" such as a cellphone push alert, as an Amber Alert does, and that highway signs are only used when a vehicle is involved, which wasn't applicable in Jonathan's case. Considering the limitations, the sheriff's office said they decided to first lean into other communication tools to alert the public.
More than 420 anti-science bills attacking longstanding public health protections – vaccines, milk safety and fluoride – have been introduced in statehouses across the U.S. this year, part of an organized, politically savvy campaign to enshrine a conspiracy theory-driven agenda into law.
An Associated Press investigation found that the wave of legislation has cropped up in most states, pushed by people with close ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The effort would strip away protections that have been built over a century and are integral to American lives and society. Around 30 bills have been enacted or adopted in 12 states.
Trump administration officials are directing activists to push anti-science legislation in the states – where public health authority rests – with the ultimate goal of changing laws and minds nationally.
The effort normalizes ideas fueled by the anti-vaccine movement that Kennedy has helped lead for years. His Make America Healthy Again agenda masks anti-science ideas while promoting goals such as making food more natural or reducing chemicals. Meanwhile, vaccination rates continue to fall, allowing the infectious diseases measles and whooping cough to make comebacks as Kennedy has sought to broadly remake federal policies on public health matters including fluoride and vaccines.
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Anti-vaccine bills – 350 of them – were by far the most common. They come at the issue from various angles: barring discrimination against unvaccinated people, creating the criminal offense of vaccine harm, requiring blood banks to test for evidence of vaccinations and instituting a 48-hour vaccine waiting period.
Legislators acknowledge they sometimes draw inspiration from other states: Bills in numerous places target mRNA vaccines, which were credited with saving millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two bills in Minnesota falsely designate them as “weapons of mass destruction.”
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Most bills haven’t passed; some died, and others are pending. But at least 26 anti-vaccine measures – including one proposed constitutional amendment and one resolution — have passed or been enacted as law in 11 states this year.
Antivaccine sentiments have been expressed throughout American history. However, in this century, the antivaccine movement gained momentum around false claims that vaccines cause autism in the 2000s, followed by “health freedom” protests versus childhood immunization mandates in schools in the 2010s [1]. Starting in 2020 with the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, health freedom extended to adult immunizations and became a signature feature of political activism on the far-right. This politically charged movement organized and convinced countless Americans to shun COVID-19 immunizations in 2021–22 resulting in an estimated 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 among the unvaccinated U.S. population. Antivaccine activism became a major lethal force in America. ... In the U.S. most childhood immunization policies are set by state legislatures, with a primary goal to maintain high levels of coverage (90–95%) in schools and prevent breakthrough outbreaks [15]. There are fears that particularly in states where partisan leanings are strong and COVID-19 immunization rates are inadequate, there will be continued declines in childhood immunizations. Therefore, statewide vaccine coalitions and partnerships urgently need help to prevent the passage of onerous legislation that could for example ban pediatric COVID-19 immunizations, require pediatricians to read the full list of excipients in vaccines prior to parental informed consent signatures, stop disease data collection, halt school vaccine mandates, or encourage alternative or unproven immunization schedules. Without question, our system of childhood immunization has been highly successful at eliminating dangerous childhood infections [9]. However, that system now faces an unprecedented political assault that could reverse many of those public health gains. Urgent action is needed to forestall the return of diseases once believed to be consigned to history.
All 50 states and Washington D.C. have laws requiring certain vaccines for students to attend school. Many states align their vaccine requirements with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. All states allow exemptions from school immunization requirements for children who are unable to receive vaccines for medical reasons. State laws vary regarding non-medical exemptions, for religious or personal reasons. Personal exemptions are also referred to as "philosophical exemptions" by some states.
Thirty states and Washington D.C. allow exemptions for people who have religious objections to immunizations. Thirteen states allow exemptions for either religious or personal reasons. Two states, Louisiana and Minnesota, do not specify whether the non-medical exemption must be for religious or personal reasons. Five states do not allow any type of non-medical exemption.
A wave of lawmakers who oppose vaccine requirements are winning elections for state legislatures amid a national drop in childhood vaccination rates and a resurfacing of preventable deadly diseases.
The victories come as part of a political backlash to pandemic restrictions and the proliferation of misinformation about the safety of vaccines introduced to fight the coronavirus.
In Louisiana, 29 candidates endorsed by Stand for Health Freedom, a national group that works to defeat mandatory vaccinations, won in the state’s off-year elections this fall.
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Louisiana’s shift is a sign of the growing clout of the anti-vaccine movement in the nation’s statehouses as bills that once died in committee make it onto the legislative floor for a vote.
Since spring, Tennessee lawmakers dropped all vaccine requirements for home-schooled children. Iowa Republicans passed a bill eliminating the requirement that schools educate students about the HPV vaccine. And the Florida legislature passed a law preemptively barring school districts from requiring coronavirus vaccines, a move health advocates fear opens the door to further vaccine limitations.
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In Michigan, the normalization of anti-vaccine views is also unfolding. Eleven lawmakers recently honored discredited anti-vaccine activist and former physician Andrew Wakefield, who is responsible for the retracted research falsely linking autism to vaccines. Nine of those legislators were elected after the pandemic began, including Angela Rigas, a hairdresser ticketed for protesting pandemic mandates at the state capitol.
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At a November conference held by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Michigan legislative aide cheered Rigas and her colleagues for taking a stand.
A daylong hearing by a Republican panel of South Carolina state legislators about pandemic preparedness saw a parade of witnesses trumpet proven falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine while raising doubts about the long-refuted link between childhood vaccines and autism.
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The most lengthy testimony given Sept. 12 came from New York attorney Aaron Siri, who spoke for nearly 90 minutes. Siri criticized federal liability shield laws covering vaccine makers and raised doubts about the refuted link between autism and the pre-natal TDAP vaccine.
The most spurious accusations about vaccines came from Aaron Siri, an attorney who is most well known for his work with an organization called the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN. In his testimony, Siri mischaracterized vaccine research by leaving out key information about vaccine efficacy and safety.
“Vaccines were not given by God at Sinai, they’re just products,” Siri said during his testimony.
Siri tried to connect vaccines to autism by claiming that there were no studies conducted by federal health authorities that had fully refuted the claim that vaccines given in the first 6 months of life were not causing autism. But that ignores the ample research done by others into the supposed links between vaccines and autism more broadly: Multiplestudieshave found no connection between vaccines and autism. And a 2013 study published in The Journal of Pediatrics concluded that there was no link between autism and the vaccines given to children in the first two years of life.
The initial report that started the controversy around vaccines and autism was retracted and has been widely debunked in the 25 years since it was published.
Siri also said that the inactivated polio vaccine “does not in any way stop the infection and transmission of the virus.” He did not mention that the vaccine prevents the paralysis that polio causes, or that widespread adoption of the vaccine worked so well that polio was eliminated in the Americas by 1994, in 36 Western Pacific countries in 2000 and in Europe by 2002. India was declared polio-free in 2014.
ICAN has been on the frontlines of anti-vaccine misinformation and is led by Del Bigtree, a television and film producer who has become an anti-vaccine activist. ICAN was listed as one of the “key organisations” tied to the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s “The Disinformation Dozen”,” the anti-vaxxers who play leading roles in spreading digital misinformation about COVID vaccines.
Objectives. To examine trends in partisan polarization of childhood vaccine bills and the impact of polarization on bill passage in the United States.
Methods. We performed content analysis on 1497 US state bills (1995–2020) and obtained voting returns for 228 legislative votes (2011‒2020). We performed descriptive and statistical analyses using 2 measures of polarization.
Results. Vote polarization rose more rapidly for immunization than abortion or veterans’ affairs bills. Bills in 2019–2020 were more than 7 times more likely to be polarized than in 1995–1996 (odds ratio [OR] = 7.04; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.54, 13.99). Bills related to public health emergencies were more polarized (OR = 1.76; 95% CI = 1.13, 2.75). Sponsor polarization was associated with 34% lower odds of passage (OR = 0.66; 95% CI = 0.42, 1.03).
Conclusions. State lawmakers were more divided on vaccine policy, but partisan bills were less likely to pass. Bill characteristics associated with lower polarization could signal opportunities for future bipartisanship.
Public Health Implications. Increasing partisan polarization could alter state-level vaccine policies in ways that jeopardize childhood immunization rates or weaken responsiveness during public health emergencies. Authorities should look for areas of bipartisan agreement on how to maintain vaccination rates. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(10):1471–1479. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306964)
From the article:
The trends we have identified can be explained, in part, by the rise and fall of controversies during this timeframe. Beginning in 1998, Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike were focused on the possibility that the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal could be linked to autism. The high frequency of bills to prohibit mercury in vaccines and to expand access to exemptions in the early 2000s were almost certainly motivated by these safety concerns.13 However, a 2004 Institute of Medicine report established the scientific consensus against the autism‒mercury hypotheses, the Lancet retracted the study that first proposed a vaccine‒autism link because of ethical and scientific concerns, and the study’s lead author, Andrew Wakefield, was removed from the United Kingdom’s registry of physicians in 2010.13,14,28
Faced with the loss of legitimate scientific arguments, leaders of vaccine-critical organizations were compelled to innovate new narratives that might resonate with blocks of potential supporters.28 In their analysis of antivaccine Facebook pages from 2009 to 2019, Broniatowski et al.17 found a decreasing prevalence of safety or efficacy concerns and an increasing emphasis on protecting individual liberty from government intrusion. This shift in emphasis from safety to parental freedom would certainly have been felt by policymakers. Legislators might strongly disagree about whether certain vaccines are safe for children, but such disagreements are not inherently partisan. By contrast, as vaccine policies became increasingly framed in terms of individual liberty versus the state, legislators might have faced mounting pressure to choose their side based on adherence to conservative or progressive views on the appropriate role of government.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said in a new interview that the “anti-vaxxer attitude” of some Americans risks causing non-COVID virus outbreaks in the U.S.
“I’m concerned the acceleration of an anti-vaxxer attitude in certain segments of the population . . . might spill over into that kind of a negative attitude towards childhood vaccinations,” Fauci told The Financial Times in an interview published Sunday.
In Missouri, for example, legislators are considering a measure exempting private school students from vaccine requirements. In Louisiana, a bill in the House would prohibit vaccinations on school property and at school-sponsored events.
Fewer than 10% of the bills will likely gain any traction, but the volume of attempts to roll back vaccine requirements is alarming, said Rekha Lakshmanan, director of advocacy and public policy at the Immunization Partnership, a vaccine education organization.
“Those are all chipping away at one of the end goals for anti-vaccine activists, which is completely doing away with school requirements,” said Lakshmanan. “That’s what people need to be paying very close attention to.”
All states require specific childhood vaccinations for illnesses such as polio, measles, and mumps, but exemptions vary. They all allow exemptions for people with medical concerns, 44 states allow religious exemptions, and 15 allow philosophical exemptions, according to 2021 data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Vaccinations are central to public health efforts at disease control and are foundational to the country’s social and economic system, said Brian Castrucci, CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, a public health advocacy organization.
“Politicians are poking holes in our public safety net,” Castrucci said of the onslaught of anti-vaccine legislation. “Vaccines, in and of themselves, are not medicine. It’s all of us collectively protecting each other.”
To be sure, anti-vaccine activists have existed as long as vaccines. And legislation to limit requirements to vaccinate against diseases such as polio, measles, and meningitis are not new. But, according to public health experts, the movement has gained momentum amid the coronavirus pandemic, boosting the reach of high-profile anti-vaccine activists.
“If you had told me that a pandemic — and what I would consider a miraculous vaccine for that disease — would trigger an anti-vax surge, I would never have believed it,” said Tracy Russell, executive director of Nurture KC, which works to improve children’s and family health in the Kansas City area of Missouri and Kansas. “But that’s exactly what happened.”
One pending Kansas bill would mandate that vaccine exemption requests be accepted without scrutiny if based on religion or personal beliefs. Currently, the state leaves it to day care centers and school districts to accept requests for religious exemptions.
State Sen. Mark Steffen stands behind amendments he pushed nullifying Kansas’ childhood vaccine requirements. The Republican, who said he is “not an anti-vaxxer in any shape or form,” lamented mandates he said were a vestige of a “kinder, gentler time” and suggested that individual rights supersede mandates designed to protect public health.
Steffen, an anesthesiologist who said he is under investigation by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for prescribing ivermectin to covid patients, said suggestions that a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases could occur if vaccination rates fall amount to fearmongering by people paid off by the pharmaceutical industry.
But Andy Marso, a Kansas vaccine advocate who launched a Facebook page to organize pro-vaccine Kansans, called such assertions insulting and said he doesn’t take any money from drug companies. He contracted meningitis B in 2004 before vaccines against it were available. He was in a coma for three weeks and had parts of all four limbs amputated.
“For me, this has been part of what helped me move on from that trauma,” Marso said. “I have a story that people need to know about.”
The legislative efforts to nullify the requirements fly in the face of widespread public support for vaccines and vaccine mandates, nationally and in Kansas, said Russell. More than 9 in 10 Kansas voters believe wellness vaccines are safe and support vaccine requirements, according to a survey conducted this year for Nurture KC. Kansas voters overwhelmingly support religious exemptions, but a majority say they support tightening existing exemptions, according to the survey.
Before the pandemic, outbreaks of measles in Kansas, Minnesota, Washington, and other states, as well as outbreaks of pertussis, had reinforced the idea that preventing disease spread required consistently high vaccination rates. And mandates, in part, helped create the mechanism for public health authorities to make vaccines widely available and accessible, said Erica DeWald, spokesperson for Vaccinate Your Family, an advocacy organization.
“Lost in what has become a political conversation around requirements is the danger of these vaccine-preventable diseases,” said DeWald. “All it takes is one case.”
Donald Trump expressed vaccine skepticism long before becoming president. But it was when the then-president was said to be considering naming Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known anti-vaccine activist, to “investigate” vaccine safety that the movement found its footing, said Timothy Callaghan, assistant professor in the health policy and management department at Texas A&M University. The embrace of anti-vaccine messaging by prominent politicians — whether because they are “true believers” or just see it as political necessity — has “lent legitimacy that the movement lacked before,” Callaghan added.
The similarity of bills from state to state raises red flags to vaccine advocates because it suggests that a coordinated effort to dismantle vaccine requirements and public health infrastructure is underway.
“Because the anti-vax movement is becoming aligned with the far right, I think those information-sharing channels are becoming more sophisticated,” said Northe Saunders, executive director of the SAFE Communities Coalition, a pro-vaccine organization. “Their ability to attract far-right politicians who see vaccines as a cause has grown. That gets them attention, if not votes.”
Not all Republicans find common cause with anti-vaccine activists, said Kansas state Rep. John Eplee, a Republican and family physician. He said he voted against some covid-related restrictions, like a statewide mask mandate, because he believed doing so might help defuse pandemic tensions. But he advocates for all vaccines, including covid shots.
Enough others in the Kansas legislature agreed in the case of one bill: Language targeting vaccines, under the auspices of parental rights, was ultimately removed before it was passed. Some observers are cautiously optimistic the House won’t pass the other bills as written.
While Eplee hopes the “passions” inflamed by covid die down with distance from the early days of the pandemic, he’s concerned that voters have forgotten the damage done by vaccine-controllable diseases, making them susceptible to disinformation from determined anti-vaccine activists and the politicians among their ranks.
“I hate to see human nature play out like that,” said Eplee. “But if people are vocal enough and loud enough, they can swing enough votes to change the world in a not-so-good way for public health and vaccinations.”
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
The screening would be in addition to the physical examination and visual evaluation required before a child enters kindergarten or enrolls in school after transferring from another state.
Omaha Sen. Jen Day, sponsor of LB997, said many young children are not screened for ASD, resulting in late diagnosis and lack of autism-specific treatments and services during a crucial developmental period. A universal screening requirement would help improve the quality of life for this small number of children each year, she said.
A physician, physician assistant, advanced practice registered nurse, school nurse, school psychiatrist or other trained individual could conduct the screening using an evidence-based developmental screening tool appropriate to the age of the child.
The screening would not be required if a child’s parent or guardian objects in writing.
Katy Menousek, a behavioral analyst at Boys Town National Research Hospital, testified in support of LB997. Although many parents can identify the signs and symptoms of ASD, she said, universal screening would be “greatly beneficial” to children whose parents are not aware of ASD.
Westin Miller also testified in support, saying the bill could address a “critical diagnosis gap.” Miller said, however, that lawmakers also should consider how an early ASD diagnosis in Nebraska can lead to applied behavioral analysis, one of the most commonly prescribed interventions for autistic children.
He said ABA is an “inherently harmful framework” that he and many other autistic people believe devalues their predispositions, disregards their consent and does not assume their competence.
“What I’m asking is that you please engage with me and other autistic people about this conversation, that you don’t have conversations about caring for autistic people without autistic people in the room,” Miller said.
No one testified in opposition to LB997 and the committee took no immediate action on it.
Senate Bill 562, authored by Senator Anthony J. Portantino (D – La Canada Flintridge), passed the Assembly Health Committee this week. The measure seeks to eliminate barriers to help patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) access Behavior Health Treatment (BHT) in California.
“Children need treatment tailored to their individual needs, prescribed by their physician or psychologist who knows them best,” stated Senator Portantino. “SB 562 will allow families to have a choice of intervention approaches in a timely manner. Early intervention is the key to helping children live up to their potential and health insurance coverage for behavioral health treatment is critical.”
Current law requires that health insurance companies cover all physician or psychologist prescribed medically necessary, evidence-based BHT for ASD. Due to a loophole in the law, patients with ASD are being denied coverage for physician and psychologist prescribed evidence-based BHT. In some cases, coverage is only being offered for one form of BHT. A shortage of network providers has also created a six to twelve month wait list for BHT services.
Additionally, all BHT providers are constrained by other statutory provisions that serve to allow insurance denials. These include the requirement for parental participation and restraints on the location. Children of working parents can be denied coverage for medically necessary treatment simply because the parent has to work and cannot attend every treatment session. Similarly, if a child must receive treatment at an after-school daycare location, they can be denied coverage simply because the setting is at a school.
If signed into law, SB 562 will eliminate the existing statutory obstacles and require health insurance coverage for all forms of medically necessary, evidence-based BHT for Californians with ASD without diminishing consumer protections. The measure expands the number of qualified professionals by authorizing already State certified professionals to administer BHT within their professional competence, thereby reducing or eliminating the waiting list for services.
SB 562 also details the requirements for a Qualified Autism Service Paraprofessional to insure health insurance coverage, including background checks to protect California children. The measure will protect the interests of California consumers and the state by closing the loopholes in the law and ensuring that every Californian is covered.
“It is great to see that SB 562 is successfully moving toward adoption,” stated Dr. Diane Cullinane, Co-Founder and Executive Director Emerita of Professional Child Development Associates, a non-profit organization located in Pasadena. “This legislation will be a tremendous benefit for children with autism and their families. By ensuring that insurance will cover all effective treatments, families will finally have a choice of types of intervention, and broader access to service providers. We appreciate Senator Anthony Portantino for his tireless advocacy for people with disabilities.”
SB 562 is sponsored by the DIR/Floortime Coalition of California, Professional Child Development Associates, and Cherry Crisp Entertainment and Productions. Supporters of the bill include: Center for Developmental Play and Learning, Child Development Institute, Dr. Barbara Stroud, Clinical Psychologist, Fresno City College, Greenhouse Therapy Center, Holding Hands Pediatric Therapy and Adult Services, NeuroRelational Framework Institute, Positive Development, the Washington Elks Therapy Programs for Children, INC., and Touchstone Family Development Center.
BHT treatment can also be
described as a continuum from treatment modalities based primarily on behavioral theory
(often referred to as applied behavior analysis - ABA) to treatments based primarily on
developmental theory. Existing law explicitly requires coverage for BHT treatment
modalities based on behavioral theory. This bill would amend existing law to explicitly
require coverage for BHT treatment modalities based on developmental theory.
Treatments based on behavioral theory (ABA) fall at the behavioral end of the
continuum.
Examples at the developmental end include RDI and Floortime.
At least six states — Arkansas, Florida, Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah — have enacted legislation to limit Covid shot mandates, giving vaccine opponents some of their most prominent victories in recent memory. At least 11 states have banned the use of vaccine passports, according to the National Council of State Legislatures, and another 31 states at minimum are considering similar legislation.
The wave of opposition to Covid-19 shots, and efforts to curb public-health authorities more generally, have alarmed health experts. They say the new legislation will make it harder to quell the pandemic and prevent future outbreaks of Covid-19 and other illnesses. Many families now emerging from isolation have delayed routine immunizations during the pandemic, and two dozen states have dispensed Covid-19 shots to fewer than 50 percent of eligible residents.
There's a huge political divide. Speaking over the weekend, former President Donald Trump took credit for the vaccine rollout and told a North Carolina crowd of supporters that "most of you" have likely been vaccinated.
But surveys have shown Trump supporters are the least likely to say they have been vaccinated or plan to be. Remember, Trump got vaccinated before leaving the White House, but that was reported months later. Unlike other public officials who were trying to encourage people to get the shot, Trump did it in private.
The top 22 states (including D.C.) with the highest adult vaccination rates all went to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Some of the least vaccinated states are the most pro-Trump. Trump won 17 of the 18 states with the lowest adult vaccination rates. Many of these states have high proportions of whites without college degrees.
But it's not just about politics:
Black Americans, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic, aren't getting the vaccine at the rate of whites. Less than a quarter of Black Americans had gotten at lease one vaccine dose as of Tuesday, according to the CDC. It's the lowest of any racial or ethnic group listed.
Black Americans also make up a significant percentage of the population in places like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina and Georgia. Those are seven of the 10 states with the lowest adult vaccination rates, though the gathering of data by race and ethnicity has been spotty depending on the state.
Young people, who also lean heavily toward Democrats, are also less likely to get vaccinated. More than 80% of people over 65 have gotten at least one shot, compared with just 45% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 51% of those 25 to 39.
And it's not necessarily about hesitancy. The May NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found 75% of Black adults said they had gotten a shot or would get it when one came available. That was about the same as white adults, but Black adults trailed whites when it came to those who said they'd actually received one.
