A battle is brewing in the Texas Legislature over so called 'Anti-Vaxxers,' people who believe that common childhood vaccinations are dangerous and decline to vaccinate their kids, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Lawmakers are pushing for a bill that would require school districts to disclose the number of parents who have received 'exemptions' from the 'no shots no school' policy which require that all students be vaccinated before school begins
Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor University, an internationally respected expert on infectious diseases, says that's a good start.
"Parents could know that if a school has very low vaccine coverage, parents could take that into considering.
The anti-vaxxer movement is growing in Texas, with some 44,000 students statewide going without shots under the 'exemptions' that the state offers. Comal County has become a hotbed of anti-vaxxer sentiment, officials say.
"If you own a gun and have young children at home, you are required to lock up the gun," Hotez said. "And if you have young children, you should be required to vaccinate their children when they go to school."
He and other doctors are concerned that the anti-vaxxer movement is deteriorating what is called 'herd immunity,' which happens when so many people are vaccinated against a deadly or dangerous disease that it can find no way to spread in a population.
Anti-vaxxers are convinced that basic childhood vaccines, or the preservative that is used in the vaccines, is dangerous and causes diseases like autism. Most of these claims have been broadly disproven by decades of research.