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The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1198, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) Act of 2008 with a unanimous vote. Thank you for the thousands of e-mail messages that you have sent to your members of Congress over the past 18 months asking for co-sponsorship of the legislation and for votes to pass the bill. The next step in the legislative process is for the bill to go to the U.S. Senate for a vote.
Please contact your Senators to urge their support for the bill which you can do within a few minutes through ASHA's Take Action Web site.
The legislation would reauthorize the state grants and assistance for EHDI programs for early screening, diagnosis, follow-up, intervention, and family support services for newborns and infants with hearing loss. H.R. 1198 and S. 1069 are consistent with the 2007 Position Statement of the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing (JCIH). For more information on the federal EHDI reauthorization bill, please contact Deborah Darcy, ASHA's Director of Grassroots Advocacy, via e-mail at ddarcy@asha.org or by phone at 800-498-2071, ext. 5612.
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