[Kris Christine]

UPDATE AB 2689: Assembly Member Smyth's Chief of Staff, Kevin O'Neill sent me the following in an e-mail 4/19/10 regarding AB 2689 indicating that although they did withdraw the change requiring puppies that be vaccinated at 3 months in "rabies areas," they would not strike authorization for the State Health Officer to impose annual rabies vaccinations. Thanks to all of the pet owners who took time to contact the Committee members, there has been a partial victory. In order to remove the authorization given to the State Health Officer to impose annual rabies vaccinations in "rabies areas," a new bill will need to be introduced in the next legislative session.

From Mr. O'Neill's e-mail: "The main intent of AB 2689 was to modernize the code to make the flow of rabies vaccinations between owners and local governments more efficient. The only reason we had originally agreed to place the age change from 4 to 3 months for rabies vaccinations in the bill was because it was sold to us as conformity language that would bring California in line with the rest of the country. Once we realized that this piece was controversial and that a lot of disagreement exists about whether changing the age to 3 months is appropriate, we decided to drop that from the bill because our main interest is simply in modernizing the code.

Likewise, changing existing and long standing code regarding the frequency of vaccinations is another controversial issue and is such a large issue that it should really be in a bill on its own, not in a bill aimed at modernizing the code. I would have offered the same advice regarding changing the age of vaccination from 4 to 3 months had I known that significant controversy surrounded that issue. "