On July 15, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved, by voice vote, the Sudden Unexpected Death and Data Enhancement Awareness Act (H.R. 669). The Subcommittee on Health approved the bill on June 19.
Sponsored by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the bill would direct the secretary of Health and Human Services to provide for surveillance efforts to collect information on stillbirths, sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), and sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC), and to develop standard protocols for these efforts. The bill would facilitate understanding of the root causes and trends of SUID and SUDC by requiring death scene investigators to collect information on the current and past medical history of the infant, family medical history, the circumstances surrounding the death, and any accidental or environmental factors associated with the death.
