Biology Digest

  Article 1 Montana HELENA — Montana’s ongoing debate over  prohibiting vaccination requirements  took several twists Wednesday after Gov. Greg Gianforte sent  House Bill 702  back to the Legislature with proposed changes of his own. Hours later, the House voted 65-35 to accept those changes.  The Senate approved the amended bill Thursday on a party-line vote. The  amendment submitted by Gianforte  appears to address a number of concerns expressed this week about the bill’s potential impacts on  health care facilities . Specifically, Gianforte’s changes would allow such facilities to ask employees to volunteer information about their vaccination status, to consider employees who don’t volunteer that information to be unvaccinated, and to implement policies specific to unvaccinated staff, patients and visitors that are designed to protect against the spread of communicable diseases. The amendment would also exempt nursing homes and assisted-living and long-term care facilities that woul

Removing religious exemptions for child vaccinations has drawn massive crowds to the state Capitol in protest and tomorrow, the Connecticut Senate will vote on it after the bill passed in the House last week with a vote of 90 to 53. Both Democrats and Republicans referenced a list from the Department of Public Health.  It shows more than 100 schools that are out of compliance and don't meet the 95% herd immunity threshold. “There’s as many as 100 schools at any given time with vaccination rates below the community immunity threshold. Each of these schools is becoming a potential vector for a disease outbreak,” said Jonathan Steinberg, a democrat who co-chairs the public health committee.   “How many children were religious exemptions, how many were medical exemptions, how many were noncompliant? Nobody could get the answers," said Rep. Anne Dauphinais, (R) Killingly, Plainfield. NBC Connecticut reached out to schools at the top of the list, who are 45%, 46% and 48% out of comp