Texas House Passes Bill Banning Mandatory Vaccination Of Children In Foster Care

AUSTIN, TX — Amid a growing rebuke of science by largely conservative skeptics, the Texas House this week passed a bill preventing newly placed foster children from being vaccinated.

A spirited debate broke out Wednesday during discussion of a bill aimed toward improving the state's Child Protective Services that pivoted to talk of the effectiveness of childhood vaccines, as the Texas Tribune reported. When the rhetorical dust cleared, House Bill 39 was passed.

The anti-vaccination thing wasn't part of the thinking of State Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat, who authored the original bill. His original version set out guidelines for Department of Family Protective Services to follow related to performing medical exams on children who have been under state stewardship for more than three business days. For children in rural areas, medical exams would have to be performed on children within seven business days of their placement in protective custody.

But then State Rep. Bill Zedler, a Republican from Arlington, chimed in, proposing an amendment prohibiting medical exams from including vaccinations. As the Tribune noted, Zedler was joined by several Republican members of the so-called "Freedom Caucus" who categorized vaccines as invasive and unnecessary.

“Immunizations do not qualify as emergency care," Zelder said. He added: "No vaccine cures a disease."

Zedler's amendment was adopted in a 74-58 vote as Wu looked on with concern, later saying the measure has set a "dangerous precedent." But Zedler has many like-minded counterparts in the state government. Current law in Texas gives biological parents the final say in deciding whether their children get vaccinated.

But not all Republicans are in lockstep with the vaccine aversion. Rep. Sarah Davis, a member of the GOP from West University Place, proposed an amendment to Zedler's amendment requiring foster children to receive cancer-prevention vaccinations, such as the HPV vaccine, the Tribune noted in its report.

“I know that in 2014, 429 deaths from cervical cancer occurred in Texas and that accounts for nearly 10 percent of the 4,200 deaths from cervical cancer nationally,” Davis said. “As I have said many times today, the HPV vaccine will eliminate cervical cancer.”

But her measure was tabled in a 74-64 vote.

"Who in this body does not believe in the science of vaccines and want to risk their children and others?” Davis asked House members Wednesday afternoon in what ultimately was a rhetorical question.

Wu wasn't finished trying to salvage his original intent, offering up a motion allowing vaccinations in hte case of tetanus. That measure managed to succeed in a 74-58 vote.

In a later conversation with the Texas Tribune, Zedler said most parents he had spoken to aren't anti-vaccination but dislike the regimented schedule of getting children their shots the lawmaker categorized as "cookie cutter medicine." He added that he carried the amendment at the behest of the group Texans for Vaccine Choice

"No vaccine is an emergency," he reiterated to the Tribune after the final votes were tallied. "The only one that might possibly be is a tetanus shot."

>>> Read the full story at Texas Tribune

Photo: Five-year-old Logan Barney, of Augusta, Ga., waits as Seaman Hayden Bankston, of San Angelo, Texas, administers the nasal flu vaccination at the at the Kaneohe Bay branch clinic of Naval Health Clinic Hawaii, Oct. 5, 2015. Credit: Christine Cabalo, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.