Bad Science Marches at the Legislature
"You can't vaccinate against stupid." If you're wondering what caused Rep. J.D. Sheffield, R-Gatesville, to provide this week's exasperated Quote of the Week, you weren't watching Tuesday's House Public Health committee hearing.
The trigger was the hours of testimony delivered against (wait for it) a bill about vaccinations. A measure jointly authored by Sheffield and Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, House Bill 465 is basically a piece of bureaucratic cleanup. It's also not particularly controversial among lawmakers, since an identical version of the bill passed the House in 2013, and simply timed out before it had a chance to pass the Senate.
Howard, a former nurse, explained to the committee the current situation. "There's some confusion," she generously explained, and clarified what it does not do. "HB 465 does not, in any way, limit access to vaccine exemptions. That has nothing to do with this bill. HB 465 does not force or coerce anyone to get vaccinated. Nothing in this bill has anything to do with that. And HB 465 does not involve the enforcement of vaccine mandates, nor does it set up tracking mechanisms for people who are not vaccinated." In short, she said, "If you or your children are not vaccinated, this bill does not affect you, period."
What it does do is update the way Texas uses its Texas Immunization Registry, or ImmTrac. That's the state's database of what vaccinations people have taken. However, at this point, Texans have to actually opt in to have their data uploaded to this medically useful healthcare database. It's an incredibly complicated process that means the state has to winnow through what data is uploaded, and it's become so burdensome to healthcare providers that many simply don't bother.
Read more: http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2015-03-06/bad-science-marches-at-the-legislature/
