SB 625 (Nguyen, R-Huntington Beach)

SB 625 would make significant changes to California’s nationally recognized Newborn Screening Program (NBS), which tests all newborn babies for life-threatening and seriously disabling diseases. Specifically, SB 625 would require every Californian giving birth to fill out a new California Department of Public Health (CDPH)-developed form consenting to the NBS. The form would also include four different signatures lines for parents to opt out of the screening, storage and/or research components of the program. The bill would also create an expensive administrative challenge for both hospitals and CDPH, as they would have to obtain, store, transmit, and coordinate several forms for each of the 500,000 babies born in California annually.