Target: Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas
Goal: Boost vaccine rates in public schools to prevent dangerous outbreaks of childhood disease.
Around 100 people along an area of the Texas and New Mexico border have contracted a disease once believed eradicated in the United States: measles. The highly contagious illness has thus far infected mostly children and has led to at least 16 hospitalizations. It typically causes a high fever, a cough, eye inflammation, a runny nose, and a spreading rash over the body. More serious cases can lead to brain inflammation, blindness, seizures, and death. Before the introduction of the measles vaccine, the disease killed an estimated eight million children worldwide every year. In the most recent outbreak, almost all of the cases occurred in unvaccinated individuals. And the hardest-hit county has one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the state of Texas.
On paper, Texas mandates that all children be vaccinated against common childhood illnesses like measles before they can attend public school. But in reality, any parent can opt a child out of receiving these vaccines for reasons “of conscience.” As has been demonstrated in Gaines County, Texas, vaccine exemption puts not only the unvaccinated child at risk but endangers all children who are likewise unvaccinated or who are not yet old enough to receive a full vaccine. Measles is highly transmissible and can be spread from merely being in the same room as an infected person or even a room that an infected person has recently vacated.
The politicization of vaccines at the top levels of government has not helped. The president recently signed an executive order threatening to defund schools that required COVID-19 vaccines for students. And the U.S. Department of Health is being led by a man with a noted history of vaccine skepticism, even in regard to the well-tested and highly effective measles vaccine.
Sign the petition below to urge Texas’ leaders to reverse course and restore full public health protections for children before it is too late.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Governor Abbott,
In just a week’s time, the measles outbreak originating out of Gaines County has grown at a disturbing rate and has crossed state lines. This is the inevitable consequence of Texas allowing dangerous loopholes in its healthcare protections for schoolchildren. Mandating common vaccines for kids of school age does no good if a vague list of exceptions is allowed. Children can and will fall ill, and they will spread one of the most contagious diseases on the planet to other children, including very young children who do not have the option or the luxury of this protection.
Make vaccines a requirement for public school attendance, no exceptions and no excuses. You owe it to all of the devastated families and all the children who succumbed to unforgiving illnesses like the measles and polio before vaccines that ensure the safety and the future of today’s youngest generations.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1 Signature