H-0667.1  _______________________________________________

                          HOUSE BILL 1603

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      56th Legislature     1999 Regular Session

By Representatives Murray, Parlette, Cody and Rockefeller

Read first time 01/29/1999.  Referred to Committee on State Government.

Regulating disclosure of medical and health research records.

    AN ACT Relating to medical and health research; and adding a new section to chapter 42.17 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  A new section is added to chapter 42.17 RCW, to be codified immediately after RCW 42.17.312, to read as follows:

    (1) In addition to records and information available for public inspection, copying, or use under federal or state laws, including but not limited to RCW 42.17.250 through 42.17.348 and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2721 (the "Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994"), vital statistics must be made available for inspection, copying, and use by a health research organization in connection with a medical or health research project that an institutional review board, as defined in RCW 70.02.010, has determined:

    (a) Is of sufficient importance to outweigh the intrusion into the privacy of a person that would result from access to the vital statistics in question;

    (b) Is impracticable without the use or disclosure of the vital statistics in individually identifiable form;

    (c) Contains reasonable safeguards to protect the information from redisclosure;

    (d) Contains reasonable safeguards to protect against identifying, directly or indirectly, a person whose vital statistics are accessed, in a report of the research project; and

    (e) Contains procedures to remove or destroy at the earliest opportunity, consistent with the purposes of the project, information that would enable identification of the person whose vital statistics are accessed, unless an institutional review board authorizes retention of identifying information for purposes of another research project.

    (2) Inspection, copying, and use of vital statistics as provided in this section are necessary to the maintenance of public health and safety.

    (3) In this section:

    (a) "Health research organization" means a nonprofit corporation that is exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and authorized under federal or state law to conduct health or medical research;

    (b) "Vital statistics" means records held by state government and by local governments descriptive of a readily identifiable person including name, address, gender, voter registration number, birth, death, marriage, divorce, annulment, and dates pertinent to them.

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