Texas Lawmakers Are Passing Anti-Vax Policies in the Midst of a Measles Outbreak

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done and where he did it in Las Vegas and he can do it here.

We begin in Texas, where they’re still at it. I realize this could mean almost anything in Texas, but, in this case, as The New York Times tells us, it’s the anti-vaxxers boldly holding the line despite all their fellow citizens who have the measles.

More than five dozen vaccine-related bills have been introduced in the Texas Legislature this year. Last week, the Texas House passed three of them. Those bills would make it easier for parents to exempt their children from school requirements; effectively bar vaccine makers from advertising in Texas; and prevent doctors from denying an organ transplant to people who are unvaccinated.

Public health leaders say that could be dangerous, and they point to the current measles outbreak as proof. Since the first cases emerged in West Texas earlier this year, measles has killed two unvaccinated children and one adult, and sickened more than 1,000 people in 30 states, making it the worst measles outbreak in the United States in 25 years. “It used to be that we would see a bill introduced as a message bill—the intent was never to become law,” said Brent Ewig, the chief policy officer of the immunization managers group. “What we’re concerned about now is that some of those message bills are clearly intended to reduce parents’ confidence in vaccination, and that will lead to lower rates. And that just invites more tragedy.”

Annnnnd, cue the noble-sounding bullshit.

“There’s no other medical procedure where you have to get permission from the state to say no,” Ms. Hardy said. “And that’s a barrier to liberty and free exercise of your deeply held beliefs.”

For the love of god, the Founders themselves allowed one of their own, Dr. Benjamin Rush, to immunize their kids, albeit crudely. (It was the ickiest part of the John Adams mini-series on HBO. The second ickiest was John and Abigail doing the zipless thing in Amsterdam). Ben Franklin had a son who died young of smallpox, and Franklin never got over his failure to inoculate him against the disease. In his autobiography, Franklin wrote, “I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given [smallpox] to him by inoculation.” And I think we can all agree that these guys were fairly sensitive about liberty and the free exercise—or non-exercise—of deeply held beliefs.

We move along to Montana. There is a wonderful story of a highly respected biomedical facility way out in Hamilton, deep in the Bitterroot Valley. It was a place that did important work. It revived the local economy, which historically was tied to the timber industry. The story is now decidedly less wonderful. MAGA has come to call. From the Montana Free Press:

Many residents are proud of the internationally recognized research unfolding at the National Institutes of Health facility and acknowledge that Rocky Mountain Labs has become an economic driver for Hamilton. But a few locals resent what they consider the elitist scientists at the facility, which has employed about 500 people in recent years. Or they fear the contagious pathogens studied there could escape the labs’ well-protected walls.

That split widened with the COVID-19 pandemic and the divisions that emerged from mask mandates and vaccine development. In 2023, Matt Rosendale, a Republican who was then a U.S. representative from Montana, falsely tied the lab to the origins of COVID in an attempt to cut its funding. Now, Hamilton is a prime example of how the Trump administration’s mass federal layoffs and cancellation of research grants are having ripple effects in communities far from Washington, D.C.

God, these really are the mole people.

As of early May, 41 Rocky Mountain Labs workers had been let go or told their contracts would end this summer, and nine more had retired early, according to researchers employed by the facility. KFF Health News spoke with 10 current or former Rocky Mountain Labs workers who requested anonymity to speak about information that has not been publicly released. The federal government has also slashed billions of dollars for research, including at least $29 million in grants to Montana recipients, ranging from university scientists to the state health department. That’s according to HHS data confirmed by KFF Health News.

Scientists who remain in Hamilton said research has slowed. They’ve struggled to buy basic gear amid federal directives that changed how orders are placed. Now, more cuts are planned for workers who buy and deliver critical, niche supplies, such as antibodies, according to researchers at the labs.

And here’s some stupid for lunch.

The Trump administration aims to eliminate roughly 1,200 jobs at the NIH and shrink its budget by 40 percent. The administration’s budget proposal to cut NIH funding calls the agency’s spending “wasteful,” deems its research “risky,” and accuses it of promoting “dangerous ideologies.”

What “ideologies,” dangerous or otherwise, does the NIH promote? Debate me. DEBATE ME, I say.

What happens if something like Ebola drops by again? Do you have any faith that this country now could hope to contain it? We can’t contain measles, for pity’s sake.

We missed this a couple of weeks ago, but a regular feature of this semi-regular weekly survey was the shenanigans of Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada and his chief of staff, Cade Cothren. The investigation into their dirty dealing took four years and left quite a few reputations badly singed. A couple of weeks ago, Beggar’s Day dawned for the two of them. From the Tennessean:

Casada was found not guilty on two fraud charges, but he was convicted of all other charges, which included conspiracy to commit theft and fraud, theft, bribery and kickbacks, honest services wire fraud, use of a fictitious name, money laundering conspiracy, and money laundering.

While 16 lawmakers were said to have contracted with the shadowy company Cothren incorporated, just three came to testify. All the lawmaker witnesses were encouraged to work with Cothren’s company by Smith, the one defendant who has already pleaded guilty. The three lawmakers who testified were Reps. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain; Esther Helton, R-East Ridge; and Jay Reedy, R-Erin.

Lotta R’s in there. Waste! Fraud! Abuse!

Cothren established Phoenix Solutions, a political consulting firm, and took on the persona of Matthew Phoenix. The plan was for legislators to hire Phoenix Solutions to handle their state-funded constituent mailers. According to prosecutors, in exchange for kickbacks, Casada and Smith pressured state bureaucrats to approve Phoenix Solutions as a vendor and send it its payments, while also persuading other lawmakers to use Phoenix Solutions.

The two netted about $52,000 from the scheme. State government corruption is meaner because the stakes are so small.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, whence Blog Official Dockside Layabout Friedman of the Argive brings us the saga of how history may now be taught in the state’s public schools. From Oklahoma Voice:

The “biggest-glaring red flag” in the new social studies standards, [Tulsa parent Lauren] Parker said, is language that casts doubt on the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. President Donald Trump has refused to concede defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 race, despite courts across the country dismissing Trump’s lawsuits claiming election fraud.

Under the new standards, Oklahoma high school U.S. history classes will be required to have students “identify discrepancies” in the 2020 election results, including the “sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”

If Oklahoma education boss Ryan Walters gets his way, every Oklahoma high-school student will be handed a bag of hammers along with their diplomas.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.