A group of regional public health officials has targeted three key health issues that have been points of contention in the state over the last few years in an effort to educate the public on the scientific support behind these public health policies.
Rx for West Virginia, led by Dr. Michael Brumage, health officer for the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, and Dr. Michael Kilkenny, health officer for the Cabell-Huntington Health Department, held a press conference on Friday to address its recommendations, or "prescriptions," for the state on three issues: vaccinating children against disease, supporting clean indoor air regulations and discouraging the consumption of raw milk and dairy products.
West Virginia has one of the highest rates of school-age vaccination in the country, and has been free of the measles outbreaks that have plagued other states in recent years. Despite this, legislators introduced a bill last year that would have allowed parents with "moral objections" to vaccines to skip the requirement for school-aged children in West Virginia. That piece of the legislation ultimately was rewritten, but Brumage said the new initiative wanted to remind citizens that vaccines are an important part of disease prevention.
"West Virginia has the best childhood immunization law in the country, and we just want to keep it that way," said Bob Whitler, vice president of government and community affairs for Charleston Area Medical Center.
Another health issue that divided the Legislature during the 2015 session was the push to legalize raw milk sales and consumption in the state. A bill to allow the consumption of non-pasteurized milk in West Virginia passed both the Senate and the House early last year, but was vetoed by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 202 of the 239 hospitalizations involving tainted dairy products between 1993 and 2006 were linked to the consumption of raw milk or raw-milk cheese. More than 1,500 people were sickened by raw milk products in that time frame, according to the CDC. The CDC has also reported that unpasteurized milk is 150 times more likely to cause food-borne illness and results in 13 times more hospitalizations than illnesses involving pasteurized dairy products.
Brumage said there is an overwhelming consensus among health professionals that the dangers of raw milk outweigh the benefits, and Rx for West Virginia has recommended that people only consume pasteurized dairy products.
"We know that raw milk is dangerous, and we don't recognize any added health benefit to drinking it," Brumage said.
Clean indoor air regulations, while widespread in the state, also saw challenges in the Legislature last year. Separate House and Senate Bills introduced last session would have allowed smoking in certain establishments, circumventing some of the clean indoor air regulations in places like Charleston, which bans smoking in all public facilities.
"We have excellent smoke-free ordinances in a lot of areas, and that's something we need to build on, rather than destroy," Kilkenny said. "We just hope to educate the public on these issues and keep them appraised of our stance."
Brumage said the initiative could forward other recommendations in the future, and added that the purpose of Rx for West Virginia was to educate the public on issues that have a lot of scientific consensus, rather than try to push a particular political agenda.
"I know that in the work that I do on the community level, there's a great deal of confusion about health messages," said Judy Crabtree, executive director of the Kanawha Coalition for Community Health Improvement. "You can get on the Internet and get one message, then hear on the news another message, and go to your doctor and hear another message. What I feel this initiative will do is to help is help local community members see where their local health professionals stand on these issues."
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.