SENATE DOCKET, NO. 1166        FILED ON: 1/14/2009

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1201

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the Year Two Thousand Nine

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An Act relative to the contraction of mrsa by public safety personnel..

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1.  Chapter 32 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting, after section 94B, the following section:-

Section 94C.  Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary affecting the non-contributory or contributory system, any condition of impairment of health caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus resulting in total or partial disability or death to a uniformed member of a paid fire department or permanent member of a police department, or of the police force of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, or of the state police, or of the public works building police, or to any employee in the department of correction or a county correctional facility whose regular or incidental duties require the care, supervision or custody of prisoners, criminally insane persons or defective delinquents, or to any permanent crash crewman, crash boatman, fire controlman or assistant fire controlman employed at the General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport, or members of the Massachusetts military reservation fire department, or EMS first responders or emergency medical technicians, shall, if such person successfully passed a physical examination on entry into such service, or subsequently successfully passed a physical examination, which examination failed to reveal any evidence of such condition, be presumed to have been suffered in the line of duty, unless the contrary be shown by competent evidence.