Plan advances to test for virus in infants with hearing loss

Published: May 17, 2023

By: Molly Ryan, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – A bill that would, in certain circumstances, require newborns to get tested
for cytomegalovirus, or CMV, cleared another hurdle Wednesday as it advanced out of the
Senate Health and Welfare Committee.

House Bill 643, also known as “Journie’s Law,” requires newborns in Louisiana who fail their
hearing tests to be screened for CMV, a common virus that can lie dormant and be passed from mother to child during pregnancy. It can have serious health implications for children if it goes undetected.

Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Bossier, the bill’s author, said a failed hearing test is an immediate sign an infant may have the virus. The bill is named after one of Horton’s constituents, Journie, who was not tested for the virus after failing her hearing test.

Journie is now blind, has cerebral palsy and needs to be fed with a feeding tube. Horton said
Journie could be walking and talking if the virus had been detected earlier.