Expanded screening is expected to save an estimated 140 babies per year in California from death or disability. Our California members, including Kristen Guzman, Larie Hall, Natalie and Alyssa Ackenheil, and Kelly Horton, have been tireless in promoting this cause in California, and we commend them all for their successful efforts. So many of our members participated and it really made a difference.

Prominent among these efforts was our Pink Postcard campaign urging Gov. Schwarzenegger to "Save Our Babies" by supporting the statewide comprehensive newborn screening. CARES Foundation launched this mail-in campaign last October, distributing over 10,000 neon-pink postcards addressed to the Governor. In addition, our Executive Director, Kelly R. Leight, and local CARES family members met with state legislators, telling their personal stories to the leaders who would be making this important decision.

"CARES volunteers have been terrific in terms of making themselves available for visiting their representatives and talking with committee members about their personal experiences," says Keith Nash, director of Public Affairs for the California March of Dimes.

The comprehensive screening test is sensitive, simple, and inexpensive. It involves taking a few drops of blood from the heel of a newborn at birth. The blood is screened using a technique called tandem mass spectrometry (MS) that can test for many different inborn conditions at once.

The provision for expanded newborn screening was included in a Budget Health Trailer Bill attached to the California state budget signed on August 1, 2004. Originally sponsored by Dede Alpert (D-SD), it requires the State Department of Health, under its Genetic Disease Branch (GDB), to expand statewide health screening of newborns to include screening for CAH, as well as for many inborn disorders of fatty acid oxidation, amino acid, and organic acid metabolism, and to provide information with respect to these disorders and testing resources to all California women receiving prenatal care and admitted to a hospital for delivery. 

In choosing to expand newborn screening, California becomes the 40^th state in the U.S. to adopt this life-saving measure. Currently, the U.S. has no uniform standards for newborn testing, but more states are expanding their newborn screening.

This trend is not only humanitarian, but practical. The California GDB estimates that for every dollar spent on expanded screening, $2.59 is saved in average lifetime costs of medical and supportive care.