Latest news with #TexansForVaccineChoice
New York Times
18-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Energized by Kennedy, Texas ‘Mad Moms' Are Chipping Away at Vaccine Mandates
Rebecca Hardy and Michelle Evans helped found Texans for Vaccine Choice with a group of like-minded women in 2015, as measles was spreading in California. They defeated legislation tightening Texas school vaccine requirements, and helped oust the lawmaker who wrote it, earning a catchy nickname: 'mad moms in minivans.' Now, as a measles outbreak that began in West Texas spreads to other parts of the country, the 'mad moms' have a slew of new allies. The 2024 elections ushered in a wave of freshman Republicans who back their goal of making all vaccinations voluntary. But no ally may be as influential as the one they gained in Washington: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation's most prominent vaccine skeptic. More than five dozen vaccine-related bills have been introduced in the Texas Legislature this year. Last week, the Texas House passed three of them. Those bills would make it easier for parents to exempt their children from school requirements; effectively bar vaccine makers from advertising in Texas; and prevent doctors from denying an organ transplant to people who are unvaccinated. The Association of Immunization Managers, a national organization of state and local immunization officials, is tracking 545 vaccine-related bills in state legislatures around the country, 180 more than last year — evidence, the group's leaders say, that Mr. Kennedy is changing the national conversation. After peaking at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of vaccine-related bills had come down in recent years. But the big fear of public health leaders that began during the pandemic, and accelerated with Mr. Kennedy's political rise — that states will undo school vaccine mandates — has so far not come to pass. 'For the 10 years that Texans for Vaccine Choice has existed, we have had a federal government that has been wholly irrelevant or working against us,' said Ms. Hardy, the group's president. 'We're excited about having individuals in the federal government who will actually cooperate with us. But what exactly that means, we don't know.' The women of Texans for Vaccine Choice have long been inspired by Mr. Kennedy. When the Texas bill that would have tightened vaccine requirements was introduced in 2015, he spoke out vigorously against it. 'I don't think it's appropriate to force people to undergo, or to have their children undergo, a medical procedure in this country,' he said then. In 2019, the group hosted Mr. Kennedy for an event at the State Capitol in Austin. Then came the 2024 election. Ms. Hardy said that after a decade of watching political speeches, she rarely gets emotional. But last year, when she watched Mr. Kennedy announce that he was merging his campaign with Donald J. Trump's, 'I had tears in my eyes.' As health secretary, Mr. Kennedy has broken with his predecessors by refusing to advocate for vaccination. In response to the measles outbreak, he acknowledged that vaccines 'do prevent infection,' but cast the decision to vaccinate as a personal one. Testifying before Congress last week, he refused to say whether, if he were a new parent, he would vaccinate his children against measles, polio or chickenpox. 'I don't want to seem like I'm being evasive,' Mr. Kennedy said, ' but I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me.' With vaccination rates already dropping, public health experts say it may not matter whether bills eroding vaccine mandates become law; all states already offer either religious or philosophical exemptions to school vaccine requirements. But the vocal activism surrounding the bills is encouraging more parents to seek those exemptions, experts say. Public health leaders say that could be dangerous, and they point to the current measles outbreak as proof. Since the first cases emerged in West Texas earlier this year, measles has killed two unvaccinated children and one adult, and sickened more than 1,000 people in 30 states, making it the worst measles outbreak in the United States in 25 years. 'It used to be that we would see a bill introduced as a message bill — the intent was never to become law,' said Brent Ewig, the chief policy officer of the immunization managers group. 'What we're concerned about now is that some of those message bills are clearly intended to reduce parents' confidence in vaccination, and that will lead to lower rates. And that just invites more tragedy.' In Republican-led states around the country, vaccine debates are playing out much as they are in Texas: The anti-vaccine movement is energized but advancing in fits and starts. 'They are making these small, incremental gains at the edges, tweaking language that makes it easier to obtain exemptions or raising the visibility that exemptions exist,' said Northe Saunders, executive director of the SAFE Communities Coalition, a pro-vaccine advocacy group. 'The castle stands, but they are chipping away at the mortar around the base.' Idaho last month became the first state in the nation to outlaw vaccine mandates, after having the highest school vaccine exemption rate in the country, 14 percent, during the 2023-2024 school year. But the 'Idaho Medical Freedom Act,' signed into law by Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, includes exemptions for hospitals and existing school mandates. In West Virginia, Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican who has appeared with Mr. Kennedy to condemn sugary beverages and food dyes, recently issued an executive order providing religious and philosophical exemptions to school requirements for vaccines. But the legislature refused to codify the order to give it the force of law. As opponents of vaccination have turned their rhetoric away from vaccine injuries and autism and instead emphasized personal freedom, they have picked up Republican support. The coronavirus pandemic accentuated the trend, making vaccination a partisan issue. Rekha Lakshmanan, the chief strategy officer of The Immunization Partnership, a Texas nonprofit that advocates for vaccination, noticed the shift in 2015. Until then, she said support for immunization was bipartisan. The defeat of the bill that moved Texans for Vaccine Choice to action, she said, was 'when you could see the switch flip.' Ms. Evans and Ms. Hardy said they were on defense, 'killing bad bills,' for the next eight years. But in 2023, they helped pass five pieces of legislation. As a result of their work, state law now requires doctors who accept reimbursement from Medicaid or the federal Children's Health Insurance Program to treat unvaccinated patients. Businesses cannot be sued for failing to comply with public health recommendations during a pandemic, and Covid-19 vaccine mandates are against the law. The vaccine exemption bill that passed the Texas House last week is the group's top legislative priority this year. The measure would enable parents to download and print their own 'reasons of conscience' vaccine exemption forms from home and deliver them to their child's school. The current system is more cumbersome; the Texas Department of State Health Services must send a form, and requires it to be notarized. 'There's no other medical procedure where you have to get permission from the state to say no,' Ms. Hardy said. 'And that's a barrier to liberty and free exercise of your deeply held beliefs.' On a sunny day in March, Ms. Evans, the Texans for Vaccine Choice political director, roamed the corridors of the State Capitol in Austin, trying to drum up supporters for the measure. Her path to advocacy, she said, began with her second child, a daughter who received a diagnosis of autism after her first birthday. Ms. Evans began exploring the proposition, now discredited, that there is a link between autism and vaccines. She also worked on a 2016 documentary, 'Vaxxed,' that questions vaccine safety and was produced by Del Bigtree, who later became Mr. Kennedy's communications Ms. Evans is a familiar figure at the State Capitol. State Representative Shelley Luther, a freshman Republican and Texans for Vaccine Choice ally, greeted her with a hug. Ms. Luther, who was jailed in 2020 for opening her hair salon in violation of Covid restrictions, wrote the bill that would effectively ban vaccine ads in Texas. Mr. Kennedy, too, favors banning pharmaceutical ads from television. 'Great minds!' Ms Luther exclaimed. Other Republicans were equally enthusiastic about the health secretary. State Representative Nate Schatzline, another freshman Republican and a Christian pastor who had recently moved back to Texas from California, said Mr. Kennedy's 'Make America Healthy Again' agenda 'won over a lot of middle class moms,' including his wife. Still, the Texans for Vaccine Choice legislative agenda faced hurdles. Its high priority bills were not getting hearings in the Texas House Committee on Public Health; the panel's Republican chairman, State Representative Gary VanDeaver, was standing in the way. He said in March that he did not want to 'do anything that's going to endanger the citizens of our state in a measles outbreak.' A few weeks later, Texans for Vaccine Choice publicly accused Mr. VanDeaver of 'stonewalling.' Before long, both the organ transplant bill and the medical exemptions bill received hearings, clearing their way for last week's passage in the House. (Ms. Luther's bill, on vaccine advertising, was handled by a different committee.) Ms. Hardy is optimistic that all three measures will soon pass the Senate and become law. Her 'dream agenda,' she said, 'is getting to a place where your vaccination status is irrelevant to your participation in society in Texas.' Five years ago she did not believe that would happen in her lifetime. Today, she is optimistic that it will. Still, Ms. Evans says that even with Mr. Kennedy in office, it may take years to get there. 'I know we're going to have to chip away at this very slowly,' Ms. Evans said. 'Every session, we get closer, inch by inch. But I don't think I'll be putting myself out of a job anytime soon.'
Associated Press
27-01-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Several bills filed to weaken vaccine mandates as more Texas families opt out of immunizations
When speech pathologist Rebecca Hardy recalls her up-close seat to lawmaking during the 2015 state legislative session, she remembers how tough it was to find anyone interested in what she wanted: more choice for Texans when it came to getting vaccinated. After forming Texans For Vaccine Choice the year before, she came to Austin to see if she could find lawmakers interested in policies to help parents who believe it's their responsibility, not the government's, to decide if and when a vaccination is administered to their child. 'We were on the scene far before COVID was even a word that anybody knew and 10 years ago, we did kind of have to sneak around the Capitol, have these conversations about vaccine mandates in the shadows,' the Keller resident now recalls. 'And it was really hard to find people willing to put their names on protective pieces of legislation.' What a difference a global pandemic makes. vaccinations in the workplace in 2023. While most of the vaccine bills 10 years ago were filed by Democrats to strengthen vaccine use, the opposite is now true — Republicans are filing most of the bills which aim to claw back vaccine requirements. There is even a House joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Texas Constitution that would preserve Texans' right to refuse a vaccination. The proposal is among more than 20 bills endorsed by Hardy's group that have been filed, most of them before the legislative session began this month. Among them include legislation that would: 1. Make it easier for parents to opt out of vaccinations. 2. Ensure no one is denied medical care based on vaccination status. 3. Keep across-the-board vaccine mandates at bay. 4. Give the Texas Legislature final approval on any new vaccinations required by schools. 5. Apply more rules for dispensing the COVID-19 vaccination. 6. Demand more transparency when it comes to a national clearinghouse on adverse effects of vaccines. 'TVC is not anti-vaccine,' Hardy said. 'We're not here to restrict anybody's access to vaccines or to dismantle the vaccine program. So we do not take a stance on if children should get all, some or no vaccines.' Instead, she insists, she wants laws that better support families' right to choose what medical care they receive, including vaccines. It's a sentiment that is gaining more traction, particularly after President Donald Trump's re-election and his selection of Robert F. Kennedy as his choice for U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. And it's a somewhat counter trendline at a time studies have consistently shown that vaccines save lives and money. A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, released last summer, found the immunization of children born between 1994 and 2023 have saved the United States $540 billion by preventing illness and costly hospitalizations as well as preventing more than 1.1 million deaths. But this move away from vaccines worries health care workers. A Texas Hospital Association's position paper stresses concerns that vaccines have become politicized and the importance of vaccines is now overlooked because they work so well. Carrie Williams, an association spokesperson, said any decision about opting out of a vaccine should be a careful one that considers the ripple effect on others. 'Vaccine decisions impact the availability of care, hospital workforce and wait times, and the people around you,' she said. 'We're always going to be on the side of policies that help prevent epidemics.' Focus on the vaccine exemption process Texas requires children and students to obtain vaccines to attend schools, child care centers and college. An individual can claim they are exempt if they are in the military, they have a religious or personal belief that goes against getting immunized or if a health provider determines it is not safe to do so. Currently, those who want to claim an exemption for their children from vaccination must request from the state Department of State Health Services that an affidavit be mailed to their home, a process that can take up to three weeks. Once it's received, the requestor must get the affidavit notarized. 'It's very inefficient,' Hardy said. Her group wants the form to be downloadable. Any one of three measures filed so far could do that: House Bill 1082, House Bill 1586 or House Bill 730. She also wants providers to stop denying medical care to individuals who choose to delay or opt out of vaccinations altogether. 'If you don't have the right in what you inject or not inject in your body, then what rights do we have?' Hardy said. Travis McCormick, a government affairs professional, has formed the group Make Texans Healthy Again that is advocating for better affordability, access and transparency in health care. As a new dad, he said he was taken aback by medical providers' rigid adherence to the vaccine schedule for newborns. 'I had a pediatrician who said if we didn't get all four (vaccines) in one day we couldn't be a client,' McCormick said. In 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 7, which bars private employers from mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for employees and contractors. Those employers who violate the law face a $50,000 fine and are subject to an investigation by the Texas Workforce Commission. That same year, House Bill 44 passed, prohibiting Medicaid and Child Children's Health Insurance Program providers from denying services to patients based on their vaccination status. Hardy said her group lobbied hard for both bills. 'In my perspective, our movement is just beginning,' Hardy said of the 2023 victories. 'We're barely chasing the pickup.' The appetite for vaccine exemptions growing Data shows a consistent rise in interest in obtaining exemptions to vaccines since 2003, when then state Sen. Craig Estes offered a measure that allowed Texans to claim a conscientious exemption in addition to established exemptions based on medical and religious reasons. It's a decision that he still stands by today, he recently told The Texas Tribune. Since 2018, the requests to the Texas Department of State Health Services for an exemption form have doubled from 45,900 to more than 93,000 in 2024. A spokeswoman for the agency, Lara Anton, said all requests for exemption affidavits are granted. 'There is no gatekeeping,' Anton said. In the 2023-24 school year, more than 13,000 kindergarteners had a non-medical exemption from at least one vaccination in Texas, twice the number a decade ago. While other states had higher rates, Texas led the nation in total exemptions. Still, most Texas children are vaccinated. More than 90% of kindergarten and 7th grade students had each of the required vaccines. As Texans emerged from lockdowns and navigated a new vaccine for COVID-19 that became more widely available in 2021, views about shutdowns and the vaccine shifted dramatically. While Abbott moved quickly with executive orders keeping businesses and schools closed when infections spread in the United States beginning in March 2020, by November, he was resisting calls for more lockdowns. The public's weariness of mandates is now impacting vaccine rates, worrying public health officials and advocates who see the number of vaccine bills as problematic. Terri Burke, who heads The Immunization Partnership, a pro-vaccine advocacy group, has the same Texas vaccine bills on her group's watch list that Hardy does. 'I fear the vaccine issue is something they (state lawmakers) will continue to chip away at, like abortion, the border,' Burke said. 'It's like death by 1,000 cuts.' She anticipates a hard legislative session, which runs through June 2, that will relax the exemption process as well as put more burden on health providers who could face more outbreaks if exemptions are made easier. 'It's going to be tough. It's really going to be tough,' she said. 'All we can do is block them. Some of the legislation filed so far focus on the Vaccine Adverse Reporting System, or VAERS, a collection of self-reported post-vaccination health issues. Others mandate physicians to report to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of health-related problems that result in death or incapacitation after a vaccine was administered. State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, who said he declined the COVID-19 vaccine on advice of his doctor, has filed one such bill, Senate Bill 269, because he wants to see better transparency about vaccines. He believes the process during the race to get a COVID-19 was so fast that he and other Texans did not have enough details to evaluate potential risks for themselves. 'I hope RFK can get a more transparent system,' Perry said, referring to Kennedy if he is approved as U.S. health secretary. 'We like to believe our doctors and our science' but Texans, Perry insists, want more information. Health experts like Dr. Peter Hotez of Houston, say vaccine choice or vaccine hesitant groups exaggerate the adverse effects of vaccines and downplay the good they do in keeping deadly diseases from killing more Americans. Hotez, one of the nation's leading vaccine experts, is worried about any reduction in the nation's vaccination rate, and that Texas specifically could be setting itself up for becoming the stage for the next pandemic. Whooping cough is now returning to pre-pandemic levels. After the measles was officially eliminated in the United States in 2020, the disease has returned, occurring usually after someone has contracted it in another country. Polio, another disease thought to be eradicated, was detected in New York State wastewater in 2022. Hotez is concerned that hesitancy and refusal of the COVID-19 vaccine is having a 'spillover' effect on childhood immunizations. 'I'm worried about it unraveling our whole pediatric vaccine ecosystem,' he said. ___
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Several bills filed to weaken vaccine mandates as more Texas families opt out of immunizations
When speech pathologist Rebecca Hardy recalls her up-close seat to lawmaking during the 2015 state legislative session, she remembers how tough it was to find anyone interested in what she wanted: more choice for Texans when it came to getting vaccinated. After forming Texans For Vaccine Choice the year before, she came to Austin to see if she could find lawmakers interested in policies to help parents who believe it's their responsibility, not the government's, to decide if and when a vaccination is administered to their child. 'We were on the scene far before COVID was even a word that anybody knew and 10 years ago, we did kind of have to sneak around the Capitol, have these conversations about vaccine mandates in the shadows,' the Keller resident now recalls. 'And it was really hard to find people willing to put their names on protective pieces of legislation.' What a difference a global pandemic makes. Today, Hardy's group and others in the vaccine hesitancy or anti-vaccine space have the ears of state lawmakers, especially on the heels of Texans for Vaccine Choice's successful push back on mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations in the workplace in 2023. While most of the vaccine bills 10 years ago were filed by Democrats to strengthen vaccine use, the opposite is now true — Republicans are filing most of the bills which aim to claw back vaccine requirements. There is even a House joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Texas Constitution that would preserve Texans' right to refuse a vaccination. The proposal is among more than 20 bills endorsed by Hardy's group that have been filed, most of them before the legislative session began this month. Among them include legislation that would: Make it easier for parents to opt out of vaccinations. Ensure no one is denied medical care based on vaccination status. Keep across-the-board vaccine mandates at bay. Give the Texas Legislature final approval on any new vaccinations required by schools. Apply more rules for dispensing the COVID-19 vaccination. Demand more transparency when it comes to a national clearinghouse on adverse effects of vaccines. 'TVC is not anti-vaccine,' Hardy said. 'We're not here to restrict anybody's access to vaccines or to dismantle the vaccine program. So we do not take a stance on if children should get all, some or no vaccines.' Instead, she insists, she wants laws that better support families' right to choose what medical care they receive, including vaccines. It's a sentiment that is gaining more traction, particularly after President Donald Trump's re-election and his selection of Robert F. Kennedy as his choice for U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. And it's a somewhat counter trendline at a time studies have consistently shown that vaccines save lives and money. A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, released last summer, found the immunization of children born between 1994 and 2023 have saved the United States $540 billion by preventing illness and costly hospitalizations as well as preventing more than 1.1 million deaths. But this move away from vaccines worries health care workers. A Texas Hospital Association's position paper stresses concerns that vaccines have become politicized and the importance of vaccines is now overlooked because they work so well. Carrie Williams, an association spokesperson, said any decision about opting out of a vaccine should be a careful one that considers the ripple effect on others. 'Vaccine decisions impact the availability of care, hospital workforce and wait times, and the people around you,' she said. 'We're always going to be on the side of policies that help prevent epidemics.' Texas requires children and students to obtain vaccines to attend schools, child care centers and college. An individual can claim they are exempt if they are in the military, they have a religious or personal belief that goes against getting immunized or if a health provider determines it is not safe to do so. Currently, those who want to claim an exemption for their children from vaccination must request from the state Department of State Health Services that an affidavit be mailed to their home, a process that can take up to three weeks. Once it's received, the requestor must get the affidavit notarized. 'It's very inefficient,' Hardy said. Her group wants the form to be downloadable. Any one of three measures filed so far could do that: House Bill 1082, House Bill 1586 or House Bill 730. She also wants providers to stop denying medical care to individuals who choose to delay or opt out of vaccinations altogether. 'If you don't have the right in what you inject or not inject in your body, then what rights do we have?' Hardy said. Travis McCormick, a government affairs professional, has formed the group Make Texans Healthy Again that is advocating for better affordability, access and transparency in health care. As a new dad, he said he was taken aback by medical providers' rigid adherence to the vaccine schedule for newborns. 'I had a pediatrician who said if we didn't get all four (vaccines) in one day we couldn't be a client,' McCormick said. In 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 7, which bars private employers from mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for employees and contractors. Those employers who violate the law face a $50,000 fine and are subject to an investigation by the Texas Workforce Commission. That same year, House Bill 44 passed, prohibiting Medicaid and Child Children's Health Insurance Program providers from denying services to patients based on their vaccination status. Hardy said her group lobbied hard for both bills. 'In my perspective, our movement is just beginning,' Hardy said of the 2023 victories. 'We're barely chasing the pickup.' Data shows a consistent rise in interest in obtaining exemptions to vaccines since 2003, when then state Sen. Craig Estes offered a measure that allowed Texans to claim a conscientious exemption in addition to established exemptions based on medical and religious reasons. It's a decision that he still stands by today, he recently told The Texas Tribune. Since 2018, the requests to the Texas Department of State Health Services for an exemption form have doubled from 45,900 to more than 93,000 in 2024. A spokeswoman for the agency, Lara Anton, said all requests for exemption affidavits are granted. 'There is no gatekeeping,' Anton said. In the 2023-24 school year, more than 13,000 kindergarteners had a non-medical exemption from at least one vaccination in Texas, twice the number a decade ago. While other states had higher rates, Texas led the nation in total exemptions. Still, most Texas children are vaccinated. More than 90% of kindergarten and 7th grade students had each of the required vaccines. As Texans emerged from lockdowns and navigated a new vaccine for COVID-19 that became more widely available in 2021, views about shutdowns and the vaccine shifted dramatically. While Abbott moved quickly with executive orders keeping businesses and schools closed when infections spread in the United States beginning in March 2020, by November, he was resisting calls for more lockdowns. The public's weariness of mandates is now impacting vaccine rates, worrying public health officials and advocates who see the number of vaccine bills as problematic. Terri Burke, who heads The Immunization Partnership, a pro-vaccine advocacy group, has the same Texas vaccine bills on her group's watch list that Hardy does. 'I fear the vaccine issue is something they (state lawmakers) will continue to chip away at, like abortion, the border,' Burke said. 'It's like death by 1,000 cuts.' She anticipates a hard legislative session, which runs through June 2, that will relax the exemption process as well as put more burden on health providers who could face more outbreaks if exemptions are made easier. 'It's going to be tough. It's really going to be tough,' she said. 'All we can do is block them. Some of the legislation filed so far focus on the Vaccine Adverse Reporting System, or VAERS, a collection of self-reported post-vaccination health issues. Others mandate physicians to report o the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of health-related problems that result in death or incapacitation after a vaccine was administered. State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, who said he declined the COVID-19 vaccine on advice of his doctor, has filed one such bill, Senate Bill 269, because he wants to see better transparency about vaccines. He believes the process during the race to get a COVID-19 was so fast that he and other Texans did not have enough details to evaluate potential risks for themselves. 'I hope RFK can get a more transparent system,' Perry said, referring to Kennedy if he is approved as U.S. health secretary. 'We like to believe our doctors and our science' but Texans, Perry insists, want more information. Health experts like Dr. Peter Hotez of Houston, say vaccine choice or vaccine hesitant groups exaggerate the adverse effects of vaccines and downplay the good they do in keeping deadly diseases from killing more Americans. Hotez, one of the nation's leading vaccine experts, is worried about any reduction in the nation's vaccination rate, and that Texas specifically could be setting itself up for becoming the stage for the next pandemic. Whooping cough is now returning to pre-pandemic levels. After the measles was officially eliminated in the United States in 2020, the disease has returned, occurring usually after someone has contracted it in another country. Polio, another disease thought to be eradicated, was detected in New York State wastewater in 2022. Hotez is concerned that hesitancy and refusal of the COVID-19 vaccine is having a 'spillover' effect on childhood immunizations. 'I'm worried about it unraveling our whole pediatric vaccine ecosystem,' he said. Disclosure: Texas Hospital Association has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
