CHAPTER 97

AN ACT to amend the Code of 1950 by adding in Chapter 4 of
Title 32 an article numbered 6, containing four sections num-
bered 32-104.4 through 32-104.7, requiring the making and filing
of certain prenatal serological examinations and certain nota-
tions on birth certificates and prescribing penalties.

[S 101]

Approved March 4, 1950

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
1. That the Code of 1950 be amended by adding in Chapter 4 of
Title 32 an article numbered 6 containing four sections numbered
32-104.4 through 32-104.7, as follows:

ARTICLE 6
PRENATAL EXAMINATIONS

§ 32-104.4. Prenatal tests required.—Every physician attend-
ing a pregnant woman during gestation shall take or cause to be
taken a sample of blood of such woman within fifteen days of the
first examination, and submit such sample to a State Department
of Health laboratory, or to a laboratory approved by the Depart-
ment, for a serological test for syphilis. Every other person per-
mitted by law to attend upon pregnant women, but not permitted
by law to take blood tests, shall cause a sample of the blood of
such pregnant woman to be taken by a licensed physician or clinic
and submitted to a State Department of Health laboratory, or to
a laboratory approved by the Department, for a serological test
for syphilis. The serological test for syphilis shall be one recog-
nized and approved by the State Department of Health. Such
laboratory tests as are required by this article shall be made on
request without charge by the laboratories of the State Department
of Health.

§ 32-104.5. Reports to be filed; confidential nature.—All posi-
tive serological tests for syphilis shall be filed with the Bureau of
Venereal Disease Control of the State Department of Health. The
Bureau and each officer or employee thereof shall keep all informa-
tion submitted in accordance with this article contidential. No
publication of any such information, except in the form of statisti-
cal or other studies without identification of individual cases,
shall be made.

§ 32-104.6. Birth certificates—In reporting a birth or still-
birth, each physician or other person permitted by law to attend
pregnancy cases and required to report births and stillbirths shall
state on the birth certificate or stillbirth certificate, as the case
may be, whether, to his knowledge, a blood test for syphilis has
been made during such pregnancy upon a specimen of blood taken
from the woman who bore the child for which a birth or stillbirth
certificate is filed. In no event shall the birth certificate state the
result of the test.

§ 32-104.7. Penalty.—Any physician, midwife or other person
legally permitted to engage in attendance upon a pregnant woman
during the period of pregnancy, or at delivery, who fails to comply
with the provisions of this article shall be guilty of a misdemeanor
and upon conviction shall be punished accordingly.