(The Texas Tribune) - Texas school districts are coming back from summer with a rising number of parents asking for vaccine exemption forms and a new law that will make those documents even easier to obtain.

Combined with funding cuts to public vaccination programs, chilling effects of immigration policies on health care, and the wearying battle by school nurses to balance parental consent and overall student body health, Texas schools are on track to have the lowest vaccination rates in decades if exemption rates continue to climb.

“I do think that there is a problem — period — that is worse than we have known about previously,” said Terri Burke, executive director of The Immunization Partnership, which advocates for public policies that support increased access to vaccines.

Since 2018

See Full Page