A new Texas law lets parents download school vaccine exemption forms online, ending mail-in delays and giving families faster access to the required paperwork.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Parents in Texas now have a new option if they want to exempt their children from school-required vaccines — they can download the exemption form online.
It’s a significant change from the old process, which required parents to request the form by mail — a system vaccine-choice advocates say often caused delays and sometimes kept children from getting enrolled on time.
Access to the downloadable form stems from House Bill 1586, which took effect Monday. The law streamlines the process, allowing parents to get the form instantly from the Texas Department of State Health Services website.
Rebecca Hardy with Texans for Vaccine Choice says the change fixes a major problem — wait times that once stretched for months.
“Parents were often put in a position of, ‘Do I keep waiting on these forms that may or may not arrive, or do I violate my conscience and go get my kid vaccinated?’” she said.
Hardy says their research uncovered other signs the process was outdated.
“We did an open records request, and the state was spending about $600,000 a year mailing out these special papers,” she said.
She says the biggest takeaway is that the new process puts control back in parents’ hands.
“It was certainly a barrier to free exercise of your rights — like having to ask the state permission to opt out of optional medical procedures,” she said.
But health leaders say education is critical.
Dr. Eric Baggerman, CEO of Amistad Community Health Clinic, supports parents’ right to choose but encourages them to rely on credible sources.
“The education has to come from the right source — and the right source is strong, evidence-based, peer-reviewed science as opposed to ‘I saw this on the internet,’” he said.
Baggerman points to past outbreaks as a reminder of what’s at stake.
“Remind ourselves why we’re doing this — the safety of vaccines and the dangers of not being vaccinated, the deaths that came from measles in Texas in the last year,” he said.
He recommends parents take any vaccination questions to their primary care doctor.