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Montana hearing on HB 364 tests privacy concerns as sponsor seeks to restore de‑identified school immunization reporting
Summary
Supporters told the House Health and Human Services committee HB 364 would restore pre‑2021 aggregate, de‑identified school vaccination reporting to DPHHS and the CDC to help detect outbreaks; opponents warned the data could be identifiable in small towns and risk discrimination. No vote was taken.
Representative Melody Cunningham, sponsor of House Bill 364, told the House Health and Human Services committee that the bill would restore Montana’s practice of allowing schools to submit de‑identified, aggregate immunization and exemption data to the Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) and, from there, to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"All states but Montana provide this information up through their Departments of Public Health and onto the CDC," Cunningham said in opening remarks and listed the vaccines covered by current law, including varicella (chickenpox), diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, rubella, mumps and measles. She said the bill would correct an “unintended consequence” of 2021’s HB 334 and would not require a fiscal note because schools already collect the information under existing law.
DPHHS officials and medical groups testified in support. Becky Wehner, bureau chief of the…
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