On September 30, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passed, by voice vote, the Protecting Our Infants Act (S. 799). The House passed its version of the bill (H.R. 1462) on September 8 (see The Source, 9/11/15).
The measure, sponsored by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), would require the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to report to Congress on prenatal opioid abuse and neonatal abstinence syndrome (newborn withdrawal). The bill would require the report to include an evaluation of the causes of, and barriers to treatment for, opioid use disorders among pregnant women and women of reproductive age and infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome.
