By:  Junell                                            H.B. No. 500
       73R1279 MLR-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to mandatory immunization of children in child-care
    1-3  facilities.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 42.043(b), Human Resources Code, is
    1-6  amended to read as follows:
    1-7        (b)  The department shall require that each child at an
    1-8  appropriate age have a test for tuberculosis.  The department shall
    1-9  also require that each child two years of age or older <and> be
   1-10  immunized against diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, mumps,
   1-11  rubella, and rubeola.  The immunization must be effective on the
   1-12  date of first entry into the facility.  However, a child may be
   1-13  provisionally admitted if the required immunizations have begun and
   1-14  are completed as rapidly as medically feasible.
   1-15        SECTION 2.  (a)  Except as provided by Subsection (b), this
   1-16  Act takes effect September 1, 1993, and applies to a child admitted
   1-17  to a child-care facility on or after that date.
   1-18        (b)  A child-care facility shall require that a child
   1-19  admitted to that facility before the effective date of this Act be
   1-20  immunized in accordance with this Act not later than January 1,
   1-21  1994.
   1-22        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-23  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-24  emergency   and   an   imperative   public   necessity   that   the
    2-1  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-2  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.