The bill was heavily backed by members of the Republican Texas Freedom Caucus.

For some godforsaken reason, the anti-vaccination movement has become increasingly mainstream and increasingly powerful. There’s oodles of well-established scientific evidence showing that anti-vaxxer beliefs are incorrect and dangerous for public health, but that, unfortunately, has not stopped what happened in Texas this week. The state House passed a bill that includes an amendment banning doctors from vaccinating children who are new entries to the foster care system.

When children are taken by Child Protective Services and enter foster care they are evaluated by a doctor to see what kind of medical care, if any, they need. If this bill becomes law, doctors would not be allowed to administer vaccinations to the children during that evaluation. San Antonio Express-News reports:

Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington and vice chairman of the staunchly conservative Texas Freedom Caucus, authored an amendment to the bill that would restrict doctors from including vaccinations in initial medical examinations for children. Zedler said children could be removed from their homes by Child Protective Services and given an unwanted vaccination. On the floor, Zedler told lawmakers that vaccines don’t protect public health and should not be considered an emergency medication. “The vaccination is only for that child to protect that child,” he said.

Zedler’s stance on vaccinations and public health are, of course, wrong. Reputable public health experts overwhelmingly agree that vaccinations are good for public health. Take this article published by the World Health Organization, for example. It calls comprehensive vaccination the "cornerstone of good public health" and cites that vaccines save almost 6 million lives a year. That sounds like good public health to me.

An exemption for vaccines that prevent cancer was proposed, but ultimately rejected by the ultra-conservative Zedler. The move shocked even fellow Republicans:

Rep. Sarah Davis, R-West University Place, attempted to change Zedler’s amendment to allow doctors to distribute a vaccine if it has been proven to prevent cancer. Davis, an advocate for vaccinations, said she was “dumbfounded” that lawmakers would vote against preventing cervical cancer. “My amendment empowers doctors to practice medicine,” Davis said during a testy exchange with Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano. “I think this is so important that we can eradicate cervical cancer.”

But Zedler stayed true to the initial amendment, which it turns out was given to him by a local anti-vaccination political action committee, according to the Texas Tribune.

Later Wednesday, Zedler told The Texas Tribune that most parents he's spoken to are often not anti-vaccine but instead don't like the regimented schedule. He said the group Texans for Vaccine Choice asked him to carry the amendment. He said doing "cookie cutter medicine" by requiring every one follow a certain vaccine schedule is not a good approach to use.

Texas is one of 18 states that allows parents to legally keep their children from getting vaccinated simply based on their “personal beliefs.” This has helped organizations like Texans for Vaccine Choice make the state into a major battleground in the war against vaccinations, Science Magazine reports.

...a PAC named Texans for Vaccine Choice has sprung up after state Representative Jason Villalba, a Republican lawyer from Dallas, proposed scrapping nonmedical exemptions last year. (The bill was never voted on.) “While they do not have a whole lot of money, they have a lot of people that they can deploy to interfere in primary campaigns,” Dragsbaek says. “They made Villalba's primary campaign very, very difficult.” Rebecca Hardy, director of state policies at Texans for Vaccine Choice, says the group is not trying to convince parents that vaccines are dangerous, but fighting for their right not to immunize their children. (It's also helping them apply for exemptions.)

The PAC may not be explicitly anti-vaccine, but it only politically empowers those who are anti-vaccination. And, as reported by The Dallas Morning News, Rep. Zedler is exactly one of those people: