Baseless claims about a link between vaccines and developmental disorders
have fueled the so called “anti-vaxxer” movement for years now.
But in Texas,
the anti-vaxxers are motivated by something else:
an unconditional commitment to personal freedom—
even at the expense of public health.
— A parent decides whether their children get vaccinated or not.
That is it in a nutshell!
— In 2003,
about 2,000 kids in Texas held exemptions allowing them to opt out of vaccinations for nonmedical reasons.
Today, that number has risen to almost 45,000.
More than 20 vaccine-related bills were introduced in the recently completed 85th Texas Legislative Session.
And while some of those bills promote vaccinations,
others definitely don’t.
31-year-old Republican State Representative Briscoe Cain
is a member of the state’s Freedom Caucus:
— Why is the debate about vaccines so strong in Texas?
Is there something specific to Texas?
— It’s something in our history, in our DNA,
that we desire to be free from government intervention in our lives.
— From your perspective,
what’s the vaccine choice debate about?
— The parent should have the ability
to decide whether or not their child takes medicine or receives an injection.
It’s about liberty.
— So it’s not about vaccines themselves or their safety?
— For some, it is.
For me personally, it has nothing to do with the science or debating the science of vaccines.
— Do you get vaccines yourself?
— I do.
— Do you have children? — I do, and they’ve been vaccinated.
— Yeah, I mean, I grew up getting the flu shot every year.
But it was at my own choosing.
— Some vaccines are only, like, 97 percent protective.
So, hypothetically,
if your child were to get the measles from a child who wasn’t vaccinated,
how would you feel about that?
— It’s troubling that my child got the measles.
— I mean, there’s an outbreak right now in Minnesota.
— I believe that personal liberty, or my personal liberty,
stops at the person of another.
— What about when that person’s personal liberties infringes on somebody else’s safety?
— I believe that, in the hierarchy of rights,
that liberty is higher than safety and security.
— When Briscoe talks about fighting for parental rights,
it’s people like Stacy Methvin that he has in mind:
— This is an exemption form.
This is for me and my son.
— She’s previously filed exemptions for her 11-year-old son Christian,
the youngest of her five children.
Christian hasn’t received any vaccines since he was six.
— Could you walk me through some of the documents that are in here?
— This one is one of the first ones that I actually went and researched.
And it talks about the role of the federal government,
but it doesn’t give them the right to mandate vaccines.
We have a right on this planet to choose for our own bodies what we take in.
And it should be the same way with a shot or treatments.
— In Texas, non-medical or “conscientious” exemptions from vaccines
can be granted for any personal reason,
including religion.
Stacy is studying to be a nurse.
She claims that two of her grandchildren were injured after getting vaccinated.
— My attitude with life, as well as vaccines,
is that if you believe in it, you push for it.
It’s hard for me.
It’s hard for me to think of a future
where other children would lose their rights
and continue to be injured when none of us knows why.
— Do you think that’s a possibility?
Are you worried about your rights being taken away?
— I worry about the rights of my children, and all of the other children out there.
— Ready to get the eggs?
— Okay!
— Heather and David Pencil are worried too.
But for a different reason.
They live in the Austin suburbs,
where public school districts have some of the highest exemptions rates in the state,
and private schools exemption rates run as high as 40 percent.
— The fact that you live in Austin instead of of New York City, for instance,
puts your family more at risk.
— Yeah.
— What happens if there’s a measles outbreak here?
— Bar the doors! — Right, yeah.
— So, say the baby is younger than six months.
I would genuinely be concerned.
Because measles is a serious disease—
I mean, it can cause encephalitis, it can cause deafness, you know,
lots of things.
— A bill introduced this year
would have made exemption rates for individual schools publicly available.
But in May,
that bill stalled out in the state legislature,
after the Freedom Caucus opposed it for infringing on personal privacy.
— How does it make you feel that the debate right now
is people putting their privacy above other people’s health safety?
— It’s a privilege issue.
They’re more concerned about their children than the risk of the greater population.
And it’s a false risk,
because that information is already available at that level.
— It’s already being collected.
— Yeah!
— You just wish that you could just…
— Yeah, it should be available to parents.
It’s a public health issue.
— Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine
at the Baylor College in Houston,
has been contending with dangers of the vaccine choice movement in Texas for years:
— A group of anti-vaccine activists
have somehow convinced a large number of people in the state of Texas
that this is a civil libertarian issue.
And I don’t accept that.
What about the civil liberties of a young mother, a young parent, in the Austin Texas area?
If I’m a mother of a young baby under the age of 12 months—
because we don’t vaccinate kids till 12 to 15 months with measles—
I’d be terrified.
If you’re a parent, you’re required by law to strap your child in a seatbelt in a car, right?
That that’s not a parental choice.
If you own a gun—
and a lot of people in Texas own guns—
you’re required to lock that gun if you have a child at home.
And it’s the same for vaccines.
— Is there anything in Texas right now that could stop
that from happening, stop outbreaks from happening?
— We could proactively block outbreaks from happening tomorrow.
And it’s very simple.
All we have to do is what was done in California:
when they had measles outbreaks,
the state legislature finally woke up
and they said, “Oh my God, what have we done?”
And they closed all the non-medical exemptions.
And guess what?
Vaccine coverage rate went up, and problem solved.
— Do you see that happening in Texas?
— I don’t,
and I’ve been saying this now and it’s very sad
that the only thing that’s going to stop this runaway train right now
is a large measles outbreak.