Friday, March 21st Legislative & Public Health Updates
- hannanur3
- Apr 29
- 12 min read
Dear friends,
I am writing to you today with legislative and public health updates.
Table of Contents
Legislative Updates
Public Health Updates
A Glimpse at the Past Week
Recent Press
Services and Resources
Upcoming Community Meeting — March 25th at 6pm
As you may have seen in my email earlier this week, I will be hosting a community meeting at the Baldwin School cafeteria (85 Oxford Street) from 6pm-7:30pm this Tuesday, March 25th. After the amazing first response of "Know Your Rights" trainings to Trump administration executive orders by advocates and organizations, this gathering seeks to serve as a time for connection within the community to figure out how to respond to all that is going on at the federal level.
This will be a space where folks can share their questions and concerns. I will be joined by advocates from Fenway Health, MIRA Coalition, and the ACLU MA, who talk about their work, the resources they have to offer, and how we, as a community, can support populations and systems that are being targeted. Please RSVP here if you will be attending.
Legislative Updates
This week, the Legislature passed a bill to extend remote public meetings until June 30, 2027. The previous policy was poised to expire on March 31. Leaders from Cambridge, as well as municipal leaders from across the Commonwealth, reached out in support of this change, which we know makes public meetings more accessible. I am glad that the Legislature worked to extend this important policy, granting public bodies and residents much-needed flexibility.
Public Health Updates
Trump Administration Delays Implementation of Food Traceability Rule by 30 Months
On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would delay a rule instructing food companies and grocers to quickly trace contaminated food through the supply chain and remove such food from the shelves. Implementation of the rule, known as the Food Traceability Rule, was set to go into effect in January 2026 as part of a 2001 food safety law but has now been delayed by 30 months. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has shown interest in food chemical safety through moves to ban food dyes, and on Thursday, Kennedy debuted a public database where individuals can track toxins in their food. However, other actions during the first few months of the Trump administration have undermined efforts to address bacteria and other contaminants in food, which are causing people to become sick.
Massachusetts DPH Investigating Case of Healthcare Associated Legionnaires’ Disease
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is investigating one case of healthcare-associated Legionnaires’ disease at Beth Israel Hospital. Legionnaires’ disease is a serious form of pneumonia that can be contracted when a person inhales a mist containing Legionella bacteria. However, the disease cannot be transmitted from person to person. People exposed to Legionella bacteria usually develop symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease within two to fourteen days of exposure. Symptoms include cough, fever, headaches, muscle aches, and shortness of breath. Most people don’t contract Legionnaires’ disease, even if they’ve been exposed to Legionella bacteria.
Mass General Brigham's Second Round of Layoffs Begins Amid Dana Farber Split
On Monday, Mass General Hospital (MGH) underwent the second-largest round of layoffs in the hospital’s history, a move that is projected to save the hospital $200 million dollars. Over the past two years, MGH reported a $53.8 million operating loss on $5.4 billion in revenue. Clinical and administrative departments among various MGB institutions, such as Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, are subject to these layoffs; various positions are slated to be merged, while some vacant positions will remain unfilled. Consolidation services have been underway for years, with efforts beginning in 2019. The layoffs came just one day before MGB announced a four-year, $400 million investment into MGB Cancer in preparation for its split from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
New Study Shows Ovarian Cancer Test May Not Be Effective in Black and Native American Patients
A new study published in JAMA Network Open suggests that a blood test used to screen for ovarian cancer may not be as effective for Black and Native American women, ultimately leading to delays in treatment and worsened outcomes. According to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group, over 19,000 women were diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2019, and over 13,000 women died of ovarian cancer. The study observed more than 200,000 women with ovarian cancer who took a CA-125 blood test. The CA-125 test measures the amount of the protein cancer antigen 125 in the blood and may be used to monitor certain cancer types during and after treatment. While the CA-125 test isn’t accurate in screening for ovarian cancer in general, it is useful as a detection mechanism for individuals with a high risk of ovarian cancer due to a strong family history or an inherited gene increasing the risk of cancer.
Measles Health Risk Continues Even Years after Infection
The ongoing measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico has grown to nearly 300 cases, surpassing the total U.S. count from 2024, with isolated cases appearing in 13 other states. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains that the overall risk remains low, experts emphasize the serious and long-term health consequences of measles, emphasizing the importance of vaccination. Measles can lead to severe complications, including pneumonia, brain swelling, and a rare but fatal neurological disease called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), which can emerge years after infection. Measles can also cause “immune amnesia,” erasing the body’s immune memory and leaving individuals vulnerable to infections that they were once protected against. Immune amnesia happens with every measles infection to some degree, but its severity varies widely. Studies show that unvaccinated children can lose between 11-73 percent of their antibodies, needing years to rebuild their immune defenses.
A Glimpse at the Past Week
On Sunday, I hosted a St. Patrick’s Day open house for friends and neighbors. I am fourth-generation Irish on my mom’s side, and my great-grandparents were 16 and 18 when they left Galway on the same boat on the same day. Without knowing this, they met in Boston years later and were married as the Curleys and the Potters. They left their home, friends, and family in search of a better life, living in extreme poverty when they arrived here in the 1920s. It took four generations for me to realize their dreams as the first in my family to no longer live in poverty. It should not take a century for this to occur, which is why supporting immigrants continues to be a priority in my work. My roots are important to me because the choice to leave one’s home country is often one of desperation and survival. The United States was built by immigrants for immigrants. It just depends on how many generations removed each of us are.
Wednesday was Immigrants’ Day at the State House, and I am always inspired to meet with students from the Cambridge Community Learning Center (CLC). I hosted 25 English language learner students from nations all over the world in my office, many of whom are in the United States for the same reasons my great-grandparents came here.
On St. Patrick’s Day, I attended a Breakfast Celebration with Minister of Enterprise, Trade, and Employment Peter Burke and former House Majority Leader and Ambassador to Ireland Claire Cronin.
Thank you to everyone who came out to office hours on Tuesday and invited me into their homes last week. I hope that you are able to join me at my Community Meeting on March 25 to continue these conversations.
Special thank you to all of the great coffee shops in Cambridge who helped fuel our conversations, Bluestone Lane, Asaro Bakery & Cafe, Cafe Zing, Simon’s Coffee Shop, Luxor Cafe, and Hi-Rise.
I continue to be in meetings hearing updates about pandemic awareness, including with the Commissioner of the Department of Public Health. We discussed avian flu, measles, the importance of vaccines, and the public health implications of the actions Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and President Trump are taking to undermine the public trust in vaccines.
The CDC recently canceled a meeting of public health experts who help recommend which flu strains should be included in the vaccine, leaving many concerned that strains may not be selected in time to manufacture and distribute vaccines by the start of next flu season. Thankfully, a subset of these experts met in the ‘dark of night’, and selected vaccine strains for the upcoming flu season. While we can at least expect an evidence-based flu vaccine next year, I know many of us continue to worry about our public health infrastructure.
On Wednesday, I was honored to be asked by my colleagues to speak at the National LGBTQ+ Health Awareness Week briefing as the House Chair of the Joint Committee on Public Health and as a legislator focused on the rights and well-being of the LGBTQ+ community.
We are living in unprecedented times due to the harmful and unlawful actions taken by the Trump Administration, which has issued over 90 executive orders. Some of these include prohibiting gender-affirming care, dismantling federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and revoking NIH funding for LGBTQ+ health and health disparities research. All of these actions are direct assaults on the dignity and fundamental rights of LGBTQ+ individuals across our country.
As a legislator, I have heard concerns from my constituents and public health experts about how these actions at the federal level will jeopardize their access to quality healthcare.
The fear and anxiety stemming from these policies are palpable. The executive orders are an assault on healthcare and intended to diminish and demoralize members of the LGBTQ+ community. Since the attack on our safety net in November, the Legislature has and will continue to fight to protect the dignity and rights of our LGBTQ+ community. We are also fortunate to have an Attorney General who will defend our laws. We can utilize our anger towards these actions to continue to organize, but we must remember that it is okay to take a step back when needed. Lean into self-care and experience joy, as these are also acts of resilience and give us the strength to continue to fight for our values.
Thank you to Fenway Health and Dallas Ducar, Executive Vice President of Donor Engagement and External Relations, for your incredible partnership. It was also great to meet with Dallas and Sean Cahill, Director of Health Policy Research at the Fenway Institute to discuss the state of healthcare access and funding in our state due to what is occurring at the federal level.
On Immigrants’ Day on Wednesday, I also met with Liz Sweet, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition, Helen Solorzano, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of Teachers of Other Languages, and Teddi Beschel, a constituent, about MIRA’s crucial work advocating for immigrant protections. MIRA’s “Know Your Rights” trainings and materials in several languages have been invaluable resources informing everyone — regardless of their legal status — about their constitutionally protected rights. I will continue to be in contact with MIRA and their partners on the ground about developments at the federal level and how they are responding.
On Thursday, I met with Christine Buckley and Jason Glashow of the Brain Aneurysm Foundation and former State Representative Eugene O’Flaherty. We discussed the importance of providing greater access to scanning to catch an aneurysm prior to a rupture. Scanning saves lives. We also touched upon the work the Foundation is doing in our state and D.C. to provide more knowledge about brain aneurysms.
The federal government’s cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding will have a severe impact. NIH funding helps support programs, new approaches to inventions, and therapeutics for brain aneurysms. The research conducted has been very promising; treatment of the disease has significantly improved, and cutting off funding now would be detrimental.
I met with the Massachusetts Alliance of Juvenile Court Clinics (MAJCC) on Thursday to discuss the important role MAJCC plays in advocating for court-involved children and families, as well as the mental and behavioral health challenges children who appear before the Juvenile Courts face. They shared with me accounts of how helpful Section 35 is for teens at risk for serious self-harm due to substance use and how teens are sent to a treatment/detox facility, never to a correctional facility.
Thank you to Rebeca Pries, Co-Chair of MAJCC, for your years of dedication to this issue and all of the clinicians who provide interventions, referral of services, and evaluations to the most vulnerable and under-resourced children in the Commonwealth.
I had a meeting with members of Grassroots for Gun Violence Prevention to discuss a bill I filed this session, An Act to promote safe firearm storage education and increase the well-being of students. The bill directs the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to develop model outreach for school districts to disseminate to parents promoting safe firearm storage in the home.
Thursday night, I had the pleasure of joining the Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery (MOAR) for their 7th Annual Public Policy Forum at the IBEW 103 hall. It was amazing to be in community with so many people who have dedicated their lives to advocating for resources and policies that support people struggling with addiction. It was also fitting to have this event at IBEW 103, which, led by Business Manager Lou Antonellis and Business Agent Jay Frazier, has created a model support group for members struggling with addiction.
I spoke about four of my bills which are priorities for MOAR and many other advocacy groups:
An Act relative to the prescription monitoring program: Enhances the coordination of care for individuals in opioid treatment programs by sharing key treatment information with authorized prescribers through the prescription monitoring program while respecting patient privacy and the consent of patients.
An Act relative to preventing overdose deaths and increasing access to treatment (filed alongside Chair John Lawn): Establishes that harm reduction programs and services will include overdose prevention centers, as well as liability protections for staff, clients, and operators.
An Act relative to treatment, not incarceration (co-filed alongside Chair Tram Nguyen): Allows judges to order individuals on probation to receive substance use treatment. However, it prohibits them from sending someone to jail simply for relapsing if they are engaged in treatment.
An Act ensuring access to addiction services (filed alongside Representative Margaret Scarsdale): Aims to end the practice of incarcerating men who have not been charged with a crime but have been committed to involuntary treatment and correctional custody for alcohol and substance use disorder under Section 35. Instead, it would require that there be enough treatment capacity in healthcare facilities administered only by the Department of Public Health and the Department of Mental Health.
Last session, the Legislature passed a comprehensive substance use disorder treatment reform bill that expands access to opioid reversal drugs, modifies mandated reporting requirements for substance-exposed newborns whose parents are taking medication for addiction treatment or have a substance use disorder, and establishes liability protections for organizations providing drug checking services.
As we now have a federal government that does not understand the role of harm reduction, we will continue to address substance use disorder, including through Section 35 reform and the establishment of OPCs in Massachusetts. I will continue to prioritize the policies and resources we need to support people in recovery, wherever they are on their journey.
Recent Press
Ella Adams (State House News Service)
“The federal-local connection is on the minds of lawmakers like public health committee co-chair, Rep. Marjorie Decker, who said her team has been having conversations since November with leadership, colleagues and the Department of Public Health about how to ensure access to gender-affirming care remains in Massachusetts.
"I'm standing here and my heart is racing because quite honestly, like many of you, the level of anger that I feel here — in turn, that anger is only going to fuel the organizing that we will do to think out of the box, to collaborate and to make sure that at the end of the day, there will still be a system of access of care to everyone in our state," Decker said.”
I continue to be in touch with local and statewide organizations to learn more about the impact Trump’s executive orders will have on our LGBTQ+ community and provide resources to send to constituents.
GLAD Law: Know Your Rights, information for LGBTQ+ people under the Trump Administration
Fenway Health: News and resources
ACLU MA: Know Your Rights: LGBTQ Rights
Cambridge Public Health Helpline Supports Residents with COVID-19
To speak with someone, call the confidential COVID-19 Hotline at 617-933-0797. Learn more here.
Intimate Partner Abuse Prevention Helpline
This initiative is designed to prevent intimate partner violence by fostering accountability and change in people who harm or may harm their partner. You can find more information at 10to10helpline.org or by calling 877-898-3411.
SafeSpot Overdose Prevention Helpline
SafeSpot is a virtual spotting/overdose detection service for people who use drugs. Learn more at safe-spot.me or access it by calling 800-972-0590.
Alzheimer's Association Helpline
The Alzheimer’s Association is a nonprofit that provides support, research, and care for Alzheimer’s and dementia with a 24/7 for caregivers and patients. More information is available at alz.org, or by calling 800-272-3900.
De Novo Center for Justice and Healing
De Novo is a Cambridge-based nonprofit that provides free civil legal assistance and affordable psychological counseling to people with low incomes. You can learn more about their services at denovo.org.
MassLegalHelp.org is a resource to help Massachusetts residents learn about their legal rights. The website does not offer legal advice or answer individual questions but has a page about options for finding a lawyer. It does provide resources for those facing legal issues, such as a landlord refusing to make repairs, appealing the denial of SNAP benefits, and questions about getting a CORI sealed.
As always, please contact me with questions or concerns at Marjorie.Decker@mahouse.gov.
Sincerely,
Marjorie
