Yesterday was Sine Die, or the last day of the 89th Texas Legislative Session! Despite a rough start to the Session, TFVC is proud to announce the passage of six bills that will strengthen Texans’ vaccine choice rights! Most notably, two legislative priorities were finally achieved – HB 1586 (Hull/Kolkhorst), which streamlines the process of requesting and submitting vaccine exemptions by allowing Texans to print the forms from their own computers and HB 4076 (Leach/Kolkhorst), which prohibits the unethical practice of denying organ transplants to patients who opt out of vaccinations. Once these bills become effective in September 2025, Texas’ most vulnerable patients will be protected from medical discrimination and parents will no longer have to jump through numerous bureaucratic hurdles to exempt their children from school-required vaccines.
One other bill garnered unexpected attention and bipartisan support – HB 3441 by freshman Representative and medical freedom champion Shelley Luther. This bill would hold vaccine manufacturers responsible for harm if they advertise their products in our state. This is a clever way to circumvent the 1986 federal law that indemnified Big Pharma and created a bloated, corrupt vaccination program in our country. It was amazing to support this “little bill that could” and watch it cross the finish line with only minutes left before the deadline.
Other TFVC-supported bills that are headed to the Governor’s desk include:
HB 4535 (McQueeney/Hancock): requires doctors to provide truthful information about COVID injections.
SB 269 (Perry/Frank): requires Texas physicians to report vaccine side effects to VAERS.
SJR 34 (Hughes/Frank): if passed on the November ballot, would protect the right of parents to control the upbringing of their children.
On top of these six legislative wins, we also celebrate ten years of killing bad legislation! Not a single TFVC-opposed bill is headed to the Governor’s desk, but we did get a lot of attention from Representative Donna Howard when she nuked her own Gardasil bill on the floor and gave an epic speech about our effective advocacy!
Of course, despite issuing 28 Action Alerts this Session, some stellar bills failed to cross the threshold due to negligence from House Public Health Committee Chairman Gary VanDeaver – particularly SB 95, SB 407 and SB 2119. Because of VanDeaver’s slow pace, hospital employees and healthcare students are still subject to mandates, and physicians are not required to provide informed consent to parents.
But never fear – TFVC will never back down or give up! We will continue to work in the interim and beyond to protect and advance informed consent, medical privacy and vaccine choice in Texas!
