Texas Legislature approves making vaccine exemption process easier

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A bill that makes it easier for parents to opt their children out of school-required vaccinations is headed for Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk after passing the Texas Senate 23-9 late Sunday.

State Rep. Lacey Hull’s House Bill 1586 does nothing to change the childhood vaccine schedule. Instead, it would allow parents to download at home a form that allows children to be exempted from being vaccinated in order to attend public schools. Currently, parents have to contact the Texas Department of State of Health Services and request the exemption form be mailed to them.

The governor must now decide whether to turn the bill into law, according to Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who carried the bill in the upper chamber.

Hull and the two main groups supporting the bill – Texans for Vaccine Choice and Texans for Medical Freedom – tried to steer clear of the heated debate about vaccination requirements by emphasizing her bill was merely “about a form” and reducing the bureaucratic effort and cost surrounding that form.

“If someone is testifying today that makes this bill about vaccination themselves, they are not being truthful and honest about what this bill is actually about,” said Jackie Schlegel, executive director for Texans for Medical Freedom, when the bill came before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee last Wednesday. “HB 1586 simplifies the process for Texas families to exercise a right that is already protected by state law.”

Rebecca Hardy, president of Texans for Vaccine Choice praised the Senate’s quick action Sunday, calling it a historic win for parental rights.

“This common sense legislation will allow Texas parents to conveniently print vaccine exemption forms from home, ending the unnecessary, costly, and outdated requirement of waiting for forms to be mailed by the state,” Hardy said.

Schlegel, reached Sunday, echoed Hardy’s sentiment. “It’s a huge step for retaking every Texan’s medical decisions and freedom back,” she said by text message. “Texans are relieved and the country watches closely as we regain our constitutional rights back!”

But Terri Burke, executive director of The Immunization Partnership, which advocates for disease prevention through vaccine use, had argued that making the exemption form easier to access will inevitably drive down vaccination rates for school-age children.

“It is disheartening that, like the House of Representatives, the Senate chooses to believe this measure is simply about the way a form is delivered,” she said late Sunday. “How they can ignore a near epidemic of measles in places with already high exemption rates and think this won’t encourage more disease outbreaks is beyond my ability to understand or explain.”

The argument that the exemption form was hard to access resonated with lawmakers, including Kolkhorst, the chair of the Senate health committee.

“I will just say this about the form. It actually happened to me,” Kolkhorst said at the May 21 committee meeting.

Last summer, her then-20-year-old son Jake needed to show proof of his meningitis vaccination to stay in the dorms at Baylor University to take two summer school classes.

He had taken it years earlier but needed to get another one when the senator suggested getting an exemption form. The process, she said, was not easy. “Oh, my goodness, that was a lot. 
I mean, like a lot, to be able to get that and get it in time for him to get into Baylor summer school,” Kolkhorst said. “I just thought that I could go online and do it.”

It was a winning pitch as Hull’s bill sailed through both chambers despite the fact that it drew far more critics than supporters in both House and Senate committee hearings. Those critics insist the measure will make vaccine exemptions easier to obtain, making it easier for childhood diseases to spread, as the state battles the nation’s worst measles outbreak since 2000.

Since January, there have been 728 cases of measles connected to an outbreak in West Texas. Two children have died from measles so far, according to the state health agency.

“House Bill 1586 is an effort to fix something that is not broken,” said Rekha Lakshmanan, with The Immunization Partnership, which advocates for disease protection. “This bill is more than just a form. The form in question is a choice that comes with real responsibilities.”

Lakshmanan said the bill will make it so easy to opt out of childhood vaccinations that the vaccination rates of schools will drop even more.

“Sadly to say, the consequences of this bill will not be unintended. Instead, they are completely foreseeable,” she said during last week’s hearing. “If this bill becomes law, Texas is likely to see more illness, more death, and higher health care costs for families and businesses.”

Data shows Texans’ growing 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.

Since 2018, the requests to the Texas state health agency for an exemption form have doubled from 45,900 to more than 93,000 in 2024. All requests for exemptions are granted.

Disclosure: Baylor University 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.

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