New York CMV Advocacy Project - Amend S2816 Save more babies - CMV birth defects. Share Fact Sheet

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New York CMV Advocacy Project 

Amend Public Health Law, Senate Bill S2816

to improve prevention and early detection of congenital cytomegalovirus

Senate Bill S2816, www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2017/s2816/amendment/original, was authored by Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal, 518.455.5802, 212.873.6368

In 2020, it was learned that child care providers in New York are still not being educated about their occupational risk for CMV despite OSHA's warning to caregivers, the NY Department of Health's webpage on CMV, and the availability of several free educational tools from the CDC and Cornell University

More New York babies can be spared from the disabilities caused by congenital CMV (saving taxpayers the costs of special education, lost wages, etc) by making the following amendments to S2816:

1) Provide more specific wording to help the Health Department fulfill its mandate already in place to provide CMV prevention education, particularly for women at high risk such as pregnant mothers who have a toddler in group care and child care providers/educators. (See Utah's bill wording for an example at: https://le.utah.gov/~2013/bills/static/hb0081.html)

2) Require ALL newborns get tested for CMV (not just those who fail their hearing screen) to identify babies who may need to be monitored and receive early intervention for their possible progressive hearing loss. Congenital CMV goes largely undetected because the majority of affected babies are asymptomatic at birth. Because hearing loss due to congenital CMV often worsens or develops later in childhood, a policy of targeted screening of infants who fail the newborn hearing screening fails to detect nearly half of CMV cases. A study concluded that 43% infants with CMV-related sensorineural hearing loss were missed through the targeted screening approach. (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5260148/)

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