Push for Texas to weaken vaccine mandates persists as measles surge

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As measles tears through West Texas — infecting hundreds, hospitalizing dozens and claiming the lives of two children — some lawmakers in Austin are pushing bills to roll back vaccine requirements and expand access to exemptions under the banner of “choice.”

Measles, a highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, has swept through West Texas communities with lower-than-average vaccination rates, turning Texas into the epicenter of a possible national epidemic with 505 cases identified since late January, including 57 hospitalizations and two deaths.

Two shots of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, which has been administered for decades, is the safest and most effective way to build immunity to the virus.

Still, Texas lawmakers have introduced bills to weaken vaccine mandates and make it easier for parents to obtain exemptions for their children — and there’s little indication that the state’s worst outbreak in three decades has changed their thinking.

Cases are concentrated in the districts of Texas House Republican leaders, including the speaker, Dustin Burrows, and state Rep. Ken King, chair of the State Affairs committee. Four of the ten counties in Texas’ designated outbreak area are in Burrows’ district. King’s district includes Gaines County, which has the highest concentration of cases.

Neither responded to a request for comment on whether they support proposals to pull back on vaccine requirements in light of the outbreaks in their districts.

In late February, Burrows said that he was closely monitoring the situation. He praised the state’s response in early March and said that the state was “bringing the vaccines over to the county … and making sure people have the resources and the tools they need to get the vaccinations.”

The districts of Republican state Sens. Kevin Sparks and Charles Perry largely encompass the outbreak area. Neither responded to a request for comment. Sparks has sponsored bills to expand vaccine exemptions for health care workers and Perry has introduced legislation to require health care providers to report “adverse events” related to vaccines.

“Generally, I don't support forced vaccines,” said state Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, whose district has seen one confirmed case of measles so far. “I support parents making the choice for their children, and those that want to can. Obviously there are consequences if there’s a problem, but I do support vaccine choice.”

State Rep. Pat Curry, R-Waco, who introduced a bill to make vaccine exemption forms available to parents online, said he is not a vaccine expert but believed that “each parent should have a choice as to what they want to do.”

Most vaccine-related bills have not yet been heard in committee in the House, while the Senate has advanced a number of bills that would require health care providers to obtain “full informed consent” before administering a vaccine to a child and a parental “bill of rights” that includes the right to opt their child out of immunization.

State Rep. Gary VanDeaver, R-New Boston and chair of the Public Health Committee, said his panel was still considering which bills to hear.

“We’re not interested in any kind of rollback of the measles vaccine,” he said Tuesday. “The MMR is a safe vaccine and something that needs to continue to be encouraged for children — at the same time, recognizing that parents have the right to opt out.”

VanDeaver recognized the “possibility” that increased exemptions could make outbreaks more likely and painful, but he said that properly educating Texans on the importance of getting the measles vaccine would help.

“If we do a better job educating people, I think we’ll be OK,” he said.

Democrats and vaccine supporters blasted what they called a lack of guidance from top lawmakers that was contributing to a worsening crisis.

“Something that shouldn’t be a problem is a problem because our leadership will not step up and say what needs to be said,” state Rep. John Bucy, D-Austin and a member of the Public Health Committee, said. “They’re so scared of primaries and following the uneducated grassroots on this that they won’t lead.”

“We’d have two more kids alive right now and a lot less kids sick if we just followed the basic science,” he added. “Any legislation to go the other way is going to lead to more kids dying in Texas.”

State Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston and a Public Health committee member, said that legislation and rhetoric purporting to expand “choice” was helping “fuel misinformation around a public health crisis.”

“MMR is a good, solid vaccine. This is the consequence of demonizing science,” she said. Parents “want to do right by their kids, and they are being led down this path to actually hurt their children.”

Johnson added: “We’re not talking about adult freedom. We’re talking about adult manipulation for politics that’s killing kids.”

Advocates on both sides of the debate said they had not noticed any shifts in lawmaker attitudes toward these bills since the crisis deepened.

“I cannot tell you how disappointing it is,” said Terri Burke, executive director of The Immunization Partnership. “There’s not been any full throated attempt by the leadership in this state to say, ‘Get your kiddos vaccinated, save their lives.’ I mean that from the governor on down.”

After The Texas Tribune reported that state leaders had not addressed the outbreak publicly even after a child died, Gov. Greg Abbott posted on social media that he had directed the state to deploy “all necessary resources to ensure the safety and health needs of Texans.” He did not mention the vaccine.

Michelle Evans, political director of Texans for Vaccine Choice, said that the outbreak had not come up in conversations with lawmakers and did not seem to be “impacting our progress or anybody’s willingness to stand with us.”

Evans said that even as the Senate was moving faster to approve measures loosening vaccine requirements, committee membership in the House “leans our way much more strongly” than it did in 2023.

She argued that despite the outbreak, “vaccine choice is the right policy. It’s a civil liberties issue, regardless of whether it’s the COVID pandemic, whether there’s a measles outbreak.”

Evans added that bills her group supports are not trying to increase the number of vaccine exemptions, but to make it easier to access those exemptions.

“We are just trying to make it so that parents who do want to exercise this right have the ability to do so in the most expeditious and respectful manner possible,” she said.

Parents who want to send their child to school unvaccinated for philosophical, religious or conscientious reasons can do so by requesting a form from the state health department that is then mailed to them. They then fill it out, notarize it and submit to their school and after school programs.

In Gaines County, the center of the crisis, 82% of kindergarteners are vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that outbreaks are more likely when the vaccination rate in a community falls below 95%.)

“If you need further proof that there’s a problem with relaxing this process, you’ve got it in Gaines County,” Burke said. “There’s a through line from this measles outbreak to these nonmedical exemptions.”

Since late January and as of Tuesday, Texas has seen 505 measles cases, including 57 hospitalizations. Two school-aged children — neither of whom was vaccinated, nor had any underlying conditions — have died after contracting measles.

The largest demographic of people getting infected with measles is children under the age of 18, who made up 351 of the 505 cases.

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