With the number of television and movie productions increasing in Pennsylvania the state’s House Republican Policy Committee held a public hearing at the Blair Mill Inn in Horsham Wednesday to begin the process of possibly updating the Keystone State’s child labor laws.

“According to the Internet Movie Database, 922 productions took place in Pennsylvania from 2002 to 2008,” state Rep. Stanley Saylor, chairman of the committee, said, adding that knowing that the industry is growing the committee was hoping to determine if the state’s laws are adequate, if they are being enforced and what needs to be done to strengthen them.

The staggering rise of reality television shows also energized the need for change, state Rep. Tom Murt said.

“The laws must evolve too,” he said. “We need to ensure that we are providing appropriate protection for the children.”

Providing testimony at the hearing were former child star Paul Petersen, civil rights advocate and attorney Gloria Allred, Rebecca Gullan, a professor of psychology at Gwynedd-Mercy College; Robert O’Brien, the executive deputy secretary for the state’s Department of Labor and Industry; as well as Kevin Kreider, the brother of television reality star Kate Gosselin, and his wife, Jodi.

Having participated in the early days of the now discontinued “Jon & Kate Plus Eight, the Kreiders said the situations the eight Gosselin children were put in throughout the show’s five seasons was “very disturbing.”

“There is very little reality involved in the production of a reality television show,” Jodi said.