Anne Donahue, R-Northfield: "The Human Services Committee wrestled with this bill at length in 2006. We rejected the concept of creating a prescription database for law enforcement, but we supported only a highly secure, confidential database for health outreach regarding prescription drug abuse. The program is intended to gather in one database all addictive regulated drugs in order to identify potential doctor-shopping or emergency room shopping that would signal addiction. . . . We had received pleas from the Commissioner of Public Safety about access to law enforcement if a pattern in the database showed evidence of major criminal abuses. We included an extremely narrow provision that permitted the Commissioner of Health, if data signaled a situation of immediate, high risk to public safety as a result of criminal activity, to personally give that information to the Commissioner of Public Safety, personally. [No delegation of authority.] It also requires the patient's doctor to be informed if this data is released.
"Last week, our committee received testimony that the administration had developed proposed rules to put the database in place that allowed the Commissioner of Public Safety to delegate receipt of information to a number of individuals in the Department -- a gross departure from the statute, and completely unacceptable."
Carol Hosford, D-Waitsfield: "The main goal of passing the bill is related to public health by making possible early identification of misuse of certain prescription drugs. If a pattern of misuse appeared in the database, a person's physician could be notified and the problem could be addressed early.
"Rules developed subsequently by the Department of Health appear to have gone beyond legislative intent. These rules will be reviewed by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, which will determine whether or not the rules reflect legislative intent. If not, the Department of Health will have to redo the rules."
Maxine Grad, D-Moretown: "I have not had a chance to review the findings of the commission regarding S.90 and its implementation. As originally passed, the bill was intended to have a very narrow focus and provide protections while protecting the public's health and safety. A state administered database raises privacy concerns that must be balanced with the need to protect the public."
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