Dr. Joyce Advocates For Childhood Vaccine Accessibility

Press Release

On Thursday, Congressman John Joyce M.D. (PA-13) introduced an amendment to his bill, H.R. 2347, the Strengthening the Vaccines for Children Program Act of 2021, which would increase the accessibility of vaccines for children across the country.

During an Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee markup, Dr. Joyce strongly advocated for the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program that helps ensure all children receive recommended vaccines by providing no-cost immunizations. Dr. Joyce's proposed amendment would expand access for the program to children from low-income families and ensure coverage for vaccine counseling. Almost half of all childhood vaccines are provided through the VFC program.

"The bipartisan bill before us today will take important steps towards supporting families and ensuring that children have access to lifesaving vaccines they so desperately need in their early development," said Dr. Joyce. "Studies show that childhood vaccinations can prevent as many as 10.5 million cases of preventable diseases in the U.S. each year. This is a common-sense bill that would make a positive impact on the health of our nations' children."

Watch Dr. Joyce's remarks here, a full transcript of his statement can be found below.

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Thank you, Mr. Chair, I speak today in strong support of this amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 2347, the Strengthening the Vaccines for Children Program Act of 2021.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a troubling drop in the rate of routine childhood vaccinations.

These were especially prevalent in the DTaP and the MMR vaccines rates which prevent several highly communicable diseases.

The bipartisan bill before us today will take important steps towards supporting families, and ensuring that children have access to lifesaving vaccines they so desperately need in their early development.

Studies show that childhood vaccinations can prevent as many as 10.5 million cases of preventable diseases in the US each year.

These statistics do not even include the eventual inclusion of a COVID-19 vaccine, which we hope will be made available to younger children in the near future.

In order to address these issues, the Strengthening the Vaccines for Children Program Act will:

Expand access to the Vaccine For Children's Program to kids on CHIP and children without insurance coverage for a vaccine.

Ensure coverage for vaccine counseling, and in particular, vaccine counseling for multiple component vaccines.

And will support access to outreach by states to further encourage vaccination distribution for children in need.

This is a common-sense bill that would make a positive impact on the health of our nations' children. While the process is still not fully complete on this bill and we must continue to work on offsetting the costs of this bill, I am very encouraged by the bipartisan process we have made today.

I thank Dr. Schrier for working with Representatives Butterfield, McKinley and myself on introducing this bill.

I would also like to thank the majority for working with us as we further improve this bill. With that I urge adoption and yield the balance of my time.

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