The Texan Podcast - 88th Session Kickoff: Abortion and Vaccine Policies Panel

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup This panel was about abortion policies in Texas following the Dobbs ruling and vaccination policies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our reporter, Holly Hansen, moderated the discussion between State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst and Reps. Donna Howard and Caroline Harris. Enjoy this content? Be sure to subscribe for similar podcasts and The Texan’s Weekly Roundup — a podcast released every Friday that brings you the latest news in Texas politics.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us again for yet another panel. For those of you who I didn't meet this morning, I am Holly Hanson. I'm a regional reporter for the Texan News, reporting primarily from Houston and Harris County, but I do cover a wide variety of issues. This afternoon we're going to talk about abortion and vaccines, and I would like to remind the audience that this is a very sensitive topic for many people. And just have respect and courtesy for differences of opinion on this issue. And I'll introduce our distinguished panel now. We have a fine group of ladies here. We have Representative Donna Howard from Austin. Donna Howard has been a critical care nurse and president

of the Texas Nurses Association and brings a great deal of medical knowledge to these issues. Then, of course, we have Senator Kohlkorst of Bredem, Senate District 18, a Republican. And Senator Kohlkorst is the chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. And then we have a freshman legislator from Round Rock, where I used to live also. Carolyn Harris may be a freshman, but she's no stranger to the legislative process. I think has been involved in seven previous sessions.

Is that correct? Seven years. Seven, oh, seven years. Okay, I was going to say you're a little young for that. She's not old enough. She would be crawling in diapers or something. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank all of you for being here today for this topic, which is a little more challenging, I would say, a little more sensitive than some of the things we've talked about today in some ways,

especially for those of us who are women, and they affect us directly. The big news in 2022, in many minds, was the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and that returned the abortion issue to the states, and the state laws here in the state of Texas triggered immediately, and as my understanding goes, there are three laws that are on the books regarding abortion. But one of the biggest criticisms that we've heard about Texas law is that there's no exception for rape and incest. We have heard difficult stories about very young girls. It is plausible that a 10-year-old girl could conceive and become pregnant and may be the victim of incest or rape. And so those are some of the difficult issues that we are dealing with or situations. And so what I'd like to hear from each of you is what you think about the problem here and what you think the state legislature ought to do? Should they reexamine this law and see if there is a plausibility to have an exception for rape or incest?

And we'll start with you, Representative Howard. Thank you. And thanks for inviting me to be here. I appreciate it. I did look before coming here at the ITOP report that the health department keeps that looks at abortion statistics. We've done this for several years now. I can't remember exactly when it started, Lois, but for a while now. She has her notes. But I believe it was 2020 that I was looking at, which was before this happened and before the change in laws happened and looking at those reported abortions for those younger than 18 which by statute

would be an assault and there were a couple of abortions reported on girls 11 years and younger, and then there were 20-some-odd on girls 13, 14, and then it went up from there. My point being that, yes, indeed, we have young girls who are getting pregnant, and the only way that a young girl like that could get pregnant is by being assaulted, even if it's by a family member or someone she knows, that's an assault. So I believe that from everything I see and from what I hear, that the majority of Texans indicate that they would like some kind of exception. And I do know that there's an argument for having no exceptions,

but I'm coming from the perspective of yes let's look at what kind of reasonable exceptions we could have here and so I have drafted some legislation and I've been working with the the groups that work with those who are survivors of sexual assault, both adults and children, and trying to come up with something that also honors the work of the Sexual Assault Survivors Task Force, which we got in place, bipartisan basis across the Senate and the House, a couple of sessions back in the governor's office, to look at our sexual assault system, the medical, the forensic, the legal, the prosecutorial, the whole thing and try to look at how can we be better about being survivor-centered

and trauma-informed because very few people report their assaults for a wide variety of reasons but one of the main reasons is because the assaults are oftentimes by a family member or somebody they know, and they do not want to get into this legal system. So in working with them, and I'll try to wrap this up real quickly here so you can get to other questions, but in looking at what they had to say about how we should be addressing this and knowing that the majority do not want to report through the legal system, we wanted to create an exception that honored that and left the decision between the physician and the patient to identify that this assault had occurred rather than having a forced reporting because that would be re-traumatizing for many of these survivors who have been through horrific experiences. So indeed, yes, I do have that legislation, and that is something that I'm going to be pushing for.

Senator Kohlkorst. You know, Holly, you started your remarks by saying this is a very sensitive and tough issue, and it certainly is. You know, Representative Howard certainly makes good points about those under the age of 18 and that it is sexual assault. If you look at our trigger law, it does not make those exceptions except for the endangerment of a mother's life. You know, I've really thought about this for a long time. There's going to be a lot of legislation that's introduced, and I think that anyone who is duly elected to the Texas legislature

and introduces legislation, all of that should be, you know, looked at and considered and debated at different times. I do fear when you start making the exceptions that it's a slippery slope. And it does put the legislature in a position at times to play God in ways. And this is something that I've thought about a lot. And so, you know, when we talk about someone that's sexually assaulted and that they don't want to report who has sexually assaulted them, you know, if this were to ever be considered, I would not vote for anything that wouldn't absolutely mandate that whoever sexually assaulted this person would also

be duly prosecuted and go through the court system. Because again, it creates that slippery slope. And so at this point, I am comfortable with where Texas is in our position. Again, we come together every 140 days to debate these tough issues. And I do believe that every voice should be listened to. And so I know that we will hear from a lot. I will just say when we celebrate life, you look at the same report that Representative Howard looked at. In August of 2022, there were three abortions,

and those all three were done and reported as health and life of the mother issues as required by our law. But in August of 2021, there were 5,706 abortions. So if you look at the laws that we've passed, it's saved 5,703 lives just in that particular month that we pulled from the data. That's really amazing. And who knows who they go on to become. But, you know, I believe that life starts at inception. And I want to, again, be respectful because there is, when I'm asked this question, and again, I go back and review where we are in statute and do a lot of praying about it. But at this point, you know, I have voted for the laws.

I am profoundly pro-life and unapologetic about that. But with due respect to my colleague you and I carry a lot of nursing bills together we've done some fabulous work together and you know but we differ on some issues and some of our views moving forward so sensitive issue and I don't want to make light of any person that's ever been sexually assaulted and what they have been through and if it leads to the conception of a child, their decision to, you know, we need to have a support system around them as they move through and carry that child to birth. Representative Harris. Thank you. I would echo what Senator Colcourse said.

I am also very profoundly pro-life, and that stems from my mother. My mother had an abortion when she was 19 years old, right after Roe v. Wade was put in place. And it was very traumatic for her. She didn't know what her options were. You know, there weren't many options back then that they told you about. And it was something that she was kind of forced into. And so she is very passionately pro-life. She volunteers at Agape Pregnancy Resource Center in Round Rock. And through her passion for being pro-life, I'm actually one of 11 children. So she, yeah, so she definitely

put it into practice. But I do want to reiterate, these are such traumatic and horrific situations. One of the benefits of being a freshman and just having been elected is, you know, I knocked on more than 8,000 doors in my campaign. And this came up a lot because I worked with my former boss, Senator Brian Hughes, on the heartbeat bill. And people knew that. And so they would ask me, and I heard a lot of stories from people that explained their situation to me. Many cases like this, there's, again, heartbreaking situations. And the one thing I would say about the laws that we have on the books now, these are not new.

The Democrats put these in place in the past, and so we've had these laws on the books before, no abortions allowed unless in the case of saving the life of the mother. What I will add though is what is new now is that we have the alternatives to abortion program that comes alongside a lot of these mothers. The legislature funded it at $100 million this past session. And I've toured a lot of these clinics. And some of the things that strike me the most is they just take this mother and the situation she's in so seriously. They make sure that even the waiting room is tailored in a way that's a calming presence that makes the mom feel safe, protected. You know, they go through all of the options. They make sure

that she's got someone to talk with her about the trauma, about what happened to her. They provide job training. Some of these clinics partner with homes where these moms can stay and get away from that terrible, abusive situation they might be in. And they help them find jobs. One of the clinics pairs the mom with a caretaker until the child is three years old, helps them find a good school, make sure that they've got food, clothing, diapers, whatever it may be. And so, you know, I always say in Texas, we are pro-life, but we are also pro-woman, pro-mom, and pro-family. And so when we pass laws, we pass them to make sure that we have healthy moms, healthy families,

that we're pro-life from the moment of conception all the way to the end of life. And so that's one of the things that I'm excited to work on as a new member in this session, is how do we help those moms, of all in those traumatic situations you know how do we make it easier for them to report you know how do we make it easier for to remove them from those situations love them help them find healing and do it in a tangible way as well again with this job training food clothing. And so I'm hopeful that we can add more funding to that program and increase other programs, maybe reform our adoption system, our foster care system. And so I'm really looking forward to the work that we can do, you know, all across the board in the pro-life movement, whether it's, you know, the mom and the kiddo

throughout. Is it okay if I say something more, or do you want to say something else? Just want to clarify that from my standpoint, from people who believe some of the ways that I look at this, would also consider ourselves to be very much pro-life in terms of supporting lives, supporting the moms' lives, supporting the lives of our Texas families. And I realize that that has a connotation, but I bristle a little bit because I want to make sure that we are all talking

about supporting these moms and babies. And I very much appreciate your comments about looking at how we can do that. You know, we have more than half the births in this state are Medicaid births, and that we are not currently providing sufficient funding to cover the health care of those moms and their babies. And so I'm hopeful, too, that we're going to be putting more money into the budget to look at how do we increase the funding to not only serve those that are currently having babies in

our state, but what we anticipate is going to be an increased number of moms and babies in our state so that they can be the healthiest they can be in a state where we have one of the highest rates of maternal morbidity and mortality. So we do have some areas we're going to, I think, have to find some common ground on here to figure out how we're going to help our Texas moms. Thank you for providing this kind of a segue because one of my questions for you, Representative Howard, is your party is in the minority in the state legislature. And so what is your strategy going forward

as you have deeply held beliefs on this issue and so how do you how does your party propose to work with the republican majority to uh you know implement some of the things you're looking for sure um first off i'll guess i'll clarify too that i'm the chair of the women's health caucus which is a bipartisan caucus we have had a couple of republicans over the years that have been a part of it. Right now, I believe we have two. Jim Murphy was one, and he left, but we have one more. That being said, the approach that we're taking to this

is clearly understanding, as the minority party, that there's not going to be any repeal of this. I'm not going in there in a combative way. I'm going to approach this, and I'm encouraging my colleagues to approach this, in what do we do to mitigate some of the damage that we see here in terms of exceptions that we think need to be in place and protecting the lives of those moms who want their babies and have complications but because of ambiguities in the law have prevented doctors from feeling like they could intervene medically.

We need to clarify what the language is so that we don't have that happening anymore. I've already mentioned the rape and incest, but also the other big, the hub of everything I'm going to be looking at is access. How do we increase access to health care? And, you know, the House in a bipartisan fashion last session passed the 12-month postpartum extension of Medicaid coverage. Working with the Senate, we went back down to six months. That never got approved. So we're still at two months, although we've been having the public health emergency. I don't want to get complicated. but the fact is we're still only a two-month postpartum state. So I'm hoping that we're going to rally around finding things like that that we can do,

extending postpartum coverage to 12 months, which is when we have the vast majority of the maternal deaths and also the morbidity issues that can be near deaths and can cause lifelong complications so I think we could find some commonality there and so my approach is let's clarify language to make sure that we put things in place that don't have unintended consequences from my vantage point anyway and then also do everything we can to increase access so we have healthy moms, healthy babies, healthy families. Senator, can I add to that? Because that is true that our had abortion to be able to get 12 months. And that's why they rejected it.

And it's really interesting to me because, of course, you know, Tony Rose, Democrat from Dallas, and I picked up the bill and, you know, our compromise. And again, going back to the data and different things, we're in the public health emergency. We have Healthy Texas Women that does all this wraparound. You know, I felt like it was a great victory for all of us, and to have it rejected by the current CMS was disappointing. I think it was disappointing for everyone here in Texas, because the language is, that's how it was originally drafted. We could be a lot further down the road. The public health emergency should end and it will end soon. And so we have to take some actions.

Could you just explain a little bit for the audience that doesn't know what happened there and what is CMS, and how did that transpire? Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and CMS, you know, anytime you have any exception in Medicaid rules, you have to ask basically permissions through waivers. It's because you're waiving a part of the law. Every state is required to postpartum carry two months. States can extend up to 12 months. And so that's when you ask for that permission, basically, in different, and we call them, you know, section blah, blah, blah, and it gets very technical, but you're asking permission because Medicaid is a federal program that is a partner with the states. You know, it's about a 60-40 program, give or take.

Now, FMAP, which I won't go into, but the long and short. And the public health emergency, the PHE, is what occurred when COVID began. And so at that point, when the public health emergency was declared by the federal government, everyone that was on the Medicaid rolls is frozen. Even though maybe you are past the time or you've made more money, whatever, you cannot be taken off the Medicaid rolls, whether it's a child. You know, our Medicaid program basically covers pregnant women and children, and then people on temporary assistance for needy families. So it's a fairly narrow program, but those Medicaid roles, they're very large right now. And so eventually there is going to be, you know, this moment where the public health emergency ends.

And we should celebrate that as a nation and move on beyond the COVID years, which I know we're going to talk about in a few minutes. OK, thank you. And Representative Harris, not to put you on the spot as a freshman, just so you know, I mean, she did work on the heartbeat bill when you were helping out with the legislature and can you explain to the audience how that law works because there's a lot of confusion about you know how what what are the enforcement mechanisms that are tied to that law absolutely so that was actually what made our heartbeat law in texas very unique was the enforcement mechanism because, you know, Roe v. Wade says a state cannot put a burden, undue burden, on women to keep them from having an abortion. And so in the heartbeat bill, the defense mechanism is actually any citizen. And so you can bring a suit against for doing an abortion on a child that has a heartbeat.

And so we have similar laws like this, we have similar functions like this where a citizen can bring a suit against someone, in Medicaid actually, and so it's not something new, but it was a creative way of looking at this situation. And so that's actually why it was upheld at the Supreme Court. And we, I mean, that law saved thousands of lives before Roe v. Wade was overturned. And there's a lot of consensus on, you know, the heartbeat is a sign of life.

We should protect it. And so that bill actually, you know, I don't know if y'all had a chance to see any of Senator Hughes debate on that or anything like that. But one thing I loved is he said, okay, I want everybody in the audience to, you know, put their hand up here and just sense your heartbeat. And he gave everyone a second, and he said, you know, we protect those with heartbeats in every other realm of our laws. Why not the most vulnerable among us? And so that was the goal of the heartbeat bill. And again, it did. It saved thousands of lives. And we're so grateful that we had that in Texas, even before Roe v. Wade was overturned. And the Supreme Court reviewed that law before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, upheld it. And we really celebrated that in Texas. And I'm very grateful I got to work with

Senator Hughes on that. He has been a champion for the pro-life movement for quite a long time. And so I'm very blessed to have worked with them. Senator Kolkhorst, a question for you. Representative Hauer brought up an issue that we've heard in the media that there is maybe some confusion in Texas abortion laws that they suggest some doctors are refusing to provide treatment for things like ectopic pregnancy under the guise that they may be prosecuted under these laws. Do you think there is a need to go back and revisit the language and perhaps clarify that? Or do you think it's clear enough as written? I was a little surprised about the confusion. The confusion, I mean, I I think that the trigger law

Is pretty specific if I could just read From that that it clearly stated that if a medical professional in the exercise of reasonable medical judgment Provides the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive unless the reasonable medical judgment that matter would create a greater risk of pregnant female's death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant female. I don't know. That's pretty clear to me. So I do think between the heartbeat bill and then Dobbs and there was a moment for pause.

Now, let's keep in mind that we are at a moment in COVID where I think that we saw medicine change greatly. I just do. I'm somewhat saddened by it. And so I'm hoping that we can kind of get through this fog and get back to medical practice where we used to. The doctors are trained at a very high level. We hope a greatly high level to make these decisions. Ectopic presents itself. There are other situations, and I'm not sure, you know, Representative Howard, you being a nurse, could we list every situation? I trust the judgment of a doctor, and, you know, I know we're going to get to COVID here in a moment, but, you know, during COVID, we all of a sudden didn't trust the judgment of a doctor. It had to

be cookbook medicine that you can only do these certain procedures. And so that's something, again, I hope we get through this fog. So in looking at these different bills, I think it's clear. But certainly, again, that's what we come together for 140 days every other year to look at these issues. And I certainly will listen to medical professionals to see where it's unclear and see if we've missed something. Yeah I'm also drafting legislation about trying to do the clarification and you know none of us up here are doctors and I've been working with the doctors with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, as well as the Texas Medical Association, to look at what language would make them feel like they can use their medical judgment in intervening.

And, you know, it may make sense to us, it may make sense to people that read that, that that should cover it, but that's not what the physicians are saying. And I'm listening to the physicians because they're the ones that are actually being put in this position. And they are the ones that are saying, this is not clear enough for me to know at what point I can intervene. The woman is not yet dying. She has complications. You know, am I going to have to send her home until she starts to get worse and is actually exhibiting what the language says in terms of without doing this she would die because she's not at that point yet?

And that's kind of the gray area that they have been talking about that has made them pause because it's their livelihood, their license, and potential jail time that's on the line. It's not something they're taking cavalierly. This is an extremely serious thing for them to have to consider in their medical practice. And the thing about listing potential complications that is again somewhat difficult is medicine is of course a science but it also has judgment attached to it. That's why you can't just all of us you know this is the one two three this is what you do in every situation. No that's not the case. That's why we have doctors and medical providers

who interact with their patients and determine what's uniquely the best medical intervention for their patient at the time. They need to have the ability to use their medical judgment that they've been trained to use, that we count on them to use, to provide us the best possible care. So we're trying to figure out how to word

it that gives them that space in which to use their medical judgment with each individual patient without being too prescriptive about it can only be X, Y, and Z. Let me give you one other example. You know, we changed, Lois, I don't know if you remember this or not, we changed a few sessions back ectopic pregnancies when Byron Cook was the head of state affairs. He had legislation that changed the definition of abortion in state statute to say that ectopic pregnancies were not abortions because in the medical sense of the word, it's a termination that you use, which is an abortion. And in insurance language, it's abortion. So he didn't

want those two things associated. And so in state statute here in Texas, ectopic pregnancies are not considered abortions. Unfortunately, it was written in a way that was prescriptive though. And there are ectopic pregnancies that do not occur the way it was written in a way that was prescriptive, though, and there are ectopic pregnancies that do not occur the way it's written in the language. So once again, his intentions were good, but it had unintended consequences. So when we're trying to write legislation that is dictating what doctors can do, we have to be very careful about it because it is not something that can be that prescriptive. So we're going back and looking at all of this with the doctors to see what kind of language we can put in place that will allow them to feel that they can comfortably use their

medical judgment and take the best care of their patients. Well, this is a good time to segue into talking about vaccines and COVID treatment. We may, if we have time, circle back to the abortion issue, but let's move on at this point. Senator Colcourse, you introduced legislation, I believe, in 2021 that essentially banned a vaccine passport. There is also confusion about that, about whether or not that applies to employers and whether or not they can mandate vaccines, COVID vaccines, as a condition of employment. Can you talk a little bit about what your legislation did and what it accomplished and what more may or may not need to be done now? Well, thank you for the question. And actually, Senate Bill 968 did not

start with vaccine, prohibition of vaccine passports in it. It was added during the committee process. You know, again, a lot of things were evolving. You know, we were still kind of in that pandemic. Gosh, you know, the Senate, we tested every day. Listen, I have calluses in my nasal passages. I can do that swab just quick. I don't even, my eyes don't even water anymore. But having said that, you know, as the process developed, you could kind of see where this was going. And we saw that in New York. And, and, you know, they kind of called it segregation of people. So I decided to introduce this, and the committee agreed with me and got it off the Senate floor in a very bipartisan manner

and also out of the House in a very bipartisan manner that prohibits a vaccine passport, so you cannot make someone, if they're going to a restaurant or to the movie theaters or entering a place of business, show that they have vaccine status. And we did that in a way that if you did that, you are going to lose your license. You're going to lose your liquor license. You're going to lose if you do that. We also gave public restaurants, you know, you can do temp checks and things like that, but you cannot demand a vaccine passport. So it did not prohibit employers

from doing vaccine mandates. So we saw that in hospitals. It was debated in the Senate. It was added to one of the, I think it was the third call session by Governor Abbott. A bill did not pass either chamber. So, you know, we have seen now the military starting to peel back their vaccine mandate. I don't know how many hospitals have or have not yet. There will be a robust debate whether or not that added to their workforce shortage. I know my daughter graduated with several, TCU has a very good nursing school, and there were just a lot of young ladies that said, I'm not getting the vaccine, so therefore, I mean, they would not go to work for certain hospitals. It was very interesting. I kind of lived it real time with these young women that did not want to

be vaccinated. So I do believe this session, it is time to begin to look at, you know, where we are in this process. And maybe in 2021, it was too early to do lessons learned. I thought it wasn't, but now I really think that it's lessons learned. And one of the things that I'll be working on is a VAERS system, a vaccine reaction system. I think, you know, Representative Howard brought up great points about what we expect from the medical profession and from the medical world and is to let them practice at their their highest standard and I just don't believe that we allowed that I mean like we saw on social media if you might offer an alternative or an off-label solution to maybe early intervention in COVID if you had COVID you literally were censored. You're banned from

Twitter. Texas Medical Board decides that they're going to pursue you and take your license away. And I just, I was really shocked that it was happening. And you're almost like, is this really happening? And then it was. And, you know, Jimmy got COVID, thank goodness. You know, we had our primary care physician, he and I had this great, you know, discussion. I mean, Jimmy's oxygen saturation was plummeting. And this was early on in the summer of 2020. And I said, listen, I want him on X, Y, and Z. Well, I don't, no. You either prescribe it or I'll find somebody. And, you know, Jimmy pulled out of the ditch and I didn't have to take him to the hospital

and didn't end up on a ventilator and didn't end up dead. And so I'm very, I am looking at all the facts. And it is time for us to have a very good discussion. All of you know we're seeing myocarditis in so many young people, athletes and so forth, and so this is what I want from science again. We used to say this is a hypothesis and you either prove it right or wrong. I mean we either prove it right or wrong, but it's time that we start to investigate is mRNA good were there other were there other options that actually help some people everyone's a little bit different

Tamiflu for influenza works on some people it doesn't work on other people it's one it's wonderful for me I'm very susceptible to the influenza for some reason and so I want to get us back to, you know, I think Representative Howard very clearly stated that we have trained doctors and we need to let them practice that. So that's kind of my rant to give you a look at. I'm really willing to rip the band-aid off and look, and I think the American people need to do that. The CDC is backing up a little bit. You have other doctors that were one way during COVID and now they're starting to say, hey, something's going on and we really need to look at this. And to just, you know, be honest, go back to

science and look at what is causing these deaths in younger people with these heart attacks and is the vaccine the right way and should these mandates you know should there really be mandates or should you just make your own decision we did have warp speed that came from trump uh we've never done this before so i i i believe that we should not have mandates for the covid vaccines. I'm not there. But it is the choice of, you know, the person. If you want to do that, I fully support you. You and your doctor need to converse about this and make the right decision.

I have a follow-up question. But, Representative Harris, you were nodding. Were you hearing a lot of this on the campaign trail? Yes, and I just wanted to add that when we're talking about this discussion, we just need to keep in mind that those of us that are talking about it may not be 100% anti-vax. We may just be careful and cautious and want to see more data. And going back to what you were saying about the medical field,

one of my friend's daughters was in the same position. She is working on becoming a nurse and it was right after the vaccine had been introduced and she was told she had to get it in order to complete her degree and her training and she just wasn't comfortable. It was just, you know, right after she just wanted to see more research, more data, especially studying medicine, you know, she just had a lot of questions. And it was so difficult for her to find a hospital that would allow her to continue her training that she almost left the field of nursing, you know, and these days we can't afford that, you know, we need all we can get. And so, but

I'm just going back to, you know, some of us just wanted to see more data, You know, we need all we can get. And so, but I'm just going back to, you know, some of us just wanted to see more data. You know, this is one of the fastest processes I think we've ever seen a vaccine go through, right? And so we just want to make sure that it is safe, it is effective. And going to the doors, I talked to a family where the mother, son, and daughter went to get the vaccine, very pro-vaccine, you know, all on board. Son went into cardiac arrest, almost died. And the mom and daughter, you know, thinking, well, this might be hereditary. We can't get the vaccine. You know, we just can't do it. Seeing this upfront and personal, they're still not anti-vax. They're just, again, cautious.

And they want to talk to their doctor more. They want to try to figure out, you know, if it's genetic, if there's something in them that the vaccine is going to cause them to react to the vaccine. And so just keeping that in mind when we talk about this discussion. And you brought up the issue of, well, you brought up the, Representative Howard, the issue of doctors being allowed to practice medicine and making those judgments on a case-by-case basis. And Senator Kohlkors mentioned this issue with the Texas Medical Board. In Houston, where I live, one of the doctors there who was very vocal about alternative treatments that were not necessarily approved by the majority of the medical field, advocated for some medications that were FDA approved, but she was using them off-label. Dr. Mary Bowden is now facing action from the Texas Medical Board.

And in learning about that story, we found that you can make anonymous complaints to that board, and she does not have the right to face her accuser, something that we would expect when we're accused of a crime or facing losing our license. Senator Hall has proposed some reforms to the Texas Medical Board. I'd like to get your buy-in or your input on what you think should happen there. We'll start with you, Representative Howard, with your medical background. Yeah, lots there that you're asking about. Where I'm going to go with that right now is that absolutely we want doctors to be able to practice medicine

and to treat their individual patients based on their best medical judgment. And doctors do not always agree on everything. I think in the cases we're talking about, though, there was a critical mass of agreement in the medical community about what the appropriate treatments were. And because this has been so polarizing and there has been so much information out there that is not always based on sound science that there was probably more of an

asserted effort to step in that they might not have done otherwise looking at the the the public health outcomes, which are very different than us making individual decisions about things that only affect us. The decisions that we make about vaccinations when we're talking about infectious diseases affect many others. And in this case, we're talking about those who are immunocompromised and can't get the vaccine even if they want it. Young babies who can't get the vaccine yet.

Those that perhaps have autoimmune diseases. Those that are cancer patients. All kinds of people who their right to be in society is limited if they can't safely go out without fear of being exposed to something. Those are the kinds of decisions that public health has always been faced with having to make, always looking at having to balance that individual choice with what's going to happen with the larger community. So in terms of that, that's the way I would approach that. In terms of the medical board, we've dealt with this before, Senator,

in terms of looking at what the medical board's powers are to do over physicians. So I haven't been involved in that discussion. I think maybe you have been, so I'm going to defer to her on that one. Yeah. And I do think that it's time to look at some of this again. When I was dealing during COVID with some of these complaints, you realize not only can it be anonymous, you don't even have to be the patient of the person making the complaint. So when I ask how many of these complaints are coming from out of state and are not the patients, I didn't, I wasn't able to get the data, but it was confirmed that there were many of those. So it is, it is time to look at that. You know, I have to say that there is a lot of information out there, and some of it can be misinformation, but the thing that I say about COVID-19 in this regard and that vaccine, we don't require influenza vaccines, and let me tell you, influenza kills people.

It absolutely kills people. The only two times I've ever been in an emergency room in my life is when I had influenza. I mean, Donna Howard, she kind of saved my life. One morning I was like, I called her and said, I'm so sick, I can't even drive myself to the emergency room. Jimmy's, you know, 85 miles away in Brenham. I don't know what to do. She's like, I'm on my way. I'm on my way. And I mean, you know, I end up, you know, in an ER. Do we talk like that? So having said that, and you know, we make light of these situations. I had H1N1 actually, you know, and I'll never forget, I was so sick,

Jimmy stayed home from work that day, that means I was really sick, but I really have to say something, you know, I'm, you know, I'm very sensitive to people, but I don't know that COVID-19 vaccines work, I mean, I'm not convinced that they do, but I'm not convinced. Again, I'm like Representative Harris in that I'm not anti-vax. Has the polio vaccine done wonders? Of course it has. Meeps and mumps and measles, but there was lots of research that went on forever and ever and ever, and it wasn't mRNA-based. You know, at least at one point during the pandemic, you had Johnson & Johnson as a non-mRNA option. That was just taken away from us. Novavax never came to the market. I can't figure this out. I mean, I just cannot figure this out.

And Novavax was derived from, you know, you can't make this up, a bark of a tree. But it never came. I kept asking and asking, where's Novavax? Let's get Novavax approved. That would give some people some options, but we didn't. And so I'm going to tell you, look, let the data drive our decisions. Let the data drive our decisions. So does COVID-19 vaccine really work? And so, you know, there's some that have a hypothesis. I think that's wonderful for science. Have a hypothesis that the more you're vaccinated, it weakens your immune system. So let's have VAERS. Let's actually dig into this and find out so that we know moving forward. Why do we fear that? I do not know why we fear it. And I say that to everyone. I would say that we know moving forward. Why do we fear that? I do not know why

we fear it. And I say that to everyone. I would say that to, you know, we had an 11-hour hearing and Dr. Robert Malone was there, who was one of the guys that was involved in the, you know, the incubator of mRNA. I want to listen to all sides of this, but prove it with facts, okay? If people are not getting myocarditis from mRNA vaccines, then prove it. Say that 12-year-old child or that 15-year-old child or that soccer player that died in Europe was not vaccinated. Please help us because what we are doing, and y'all can tell I'm really emotional, we are down the public health system this is no good for the future the lack of trust it kills me the lack of trust and so I'm trying to reinstitute trust in public health and I think that it's very needed public health is you know something that we

need as a society and it's it's it was meant to protect you and your loved ones, but we've kind of skewed, like it was this way or the highway, you know, does budesonide work for, you know, early treatment of COVID, does, you know, hydroxychloroquine, or does ivermectin, my gosh, you know, what were the side effects, even if you tried it, I mean, mean, how many people you know who have cancer try some experimental drug? Because you're trying to stay alive, you're willing to risk that. So I'm just so frustrated. So I'm going to just introduce common sense legislation that says, look, let's go back to the data. Let's get past the darkness of those two and a half years where you were canceled on social media or your license was taken away, and let's let the data drive our future decisions. And if we do that, I believe that we can restore faith in our public health system.

So I have many emotions about this, but again, there is a large distrust that has been brought about, and we have to let the data drive our future decisions. So don't be fearful of what it reveals to us. Then we'll know. I mean, and we've known this. We've done this. It's taken us a long time in some of these situations to go back and to look at experimental drugs that did bad things to people.

And we have, you know, folks, some people are hesitant on vaccines because of the past. And so we have to move forward in a way that I believe is good and scientific and just don't squelch and silence voices that are questioning. That's how science evolves is questions, absolute questions. And that's what I'm looking to do. I mean, even the CDC has now admitted that natural immunity is better than the vaccine. I totally agree with you, Senator, in terms of let's look at the facts and the data and I guess where I would want to have some discussion with you is,

are we going to be able to rely on the medical and scientific community or is that not a place where we can trust at this point in time? Because, you know, the American Medical Association, the American Pediatric Society, the university institutions, they're the ones doing the science and the research and have the knowledge in the background

to look at the data to help us craft what's the best policy to move forward is that going to be something that they should definitely be in the discussion i think europe is ahead of us on this in some regards um because of some of the reactions that they were seeing so but i don't i think a really wise man once said this to me. The human desire to be correct transcends all other human desires. Okay, so stay with me. Why do I make that statement?

I mean, think about the kamikaze pilots during World War II. They were willing to, you know, in the very end, they would crash their planes into the ships to do as much damage as they could. They were willing because the human desire to be correct transcends all other human desires. What I fear, because there was such strife, some people were so strident on believing that they were right that they can't admit that they're wrong. But over time, science, science, you know, that is how we've been able to move forward. My gosh, look at mental health. You know, they used to take people and they would shock them. They would give them electric waves and do these horrible things to them. And over time, they were able to be proven wrong and then we were

able to get past that and move forward that represent power is what I'm looking forward to so with our AMA and our you know American Pediatric Society I don't want them to bunker in I want you to move to a new stage and let's open this up a Veyer system where you actually get those reactions have it reportable would be great um you know and and then I think our treatment for COVID has evolved I'm hoping you know as the strain has gone along um it it finally has started reacting the way that it should and and it's it's lesser you know I always go back to Delta when we were here in August of 2021.

Delta was a beast, right? I mean, it was, there were a lot of sick people, but Omicron was like having the sniffles, not to everyone, not to everyone, but it, you know, we're moving along through this, but it's going to be with us forever, just like the influenza. Go get yourself some type A influenza and see how you feel tomorrow morning. You may too end up in the emergency room. I'm sure I am not alone in wishing we could continue this conversation for another couple of hours. This is very interesting. It will happen in the legislature. There will be many hours that all of you could join us in debating these. Great conversation. Thank you all for being here

and for handling these sensitive topics in such a civil and wonderful way. We really appreciate your time. I appreciate all of you. Holly, can I say, do you know how hard it is for, you know, Representative Howard has served for so long and to come with, you know, two Republicans. I just so admire her.

And I mean, like, we sat near each other on the House floor, and this is what makes Texas different, okay? Because there's going to be bills of mine that Representative Howard votes for, and there's going to be bills of mine that I'm sure she's going to vote against, and that's going to be true of me. But in the Texas House and Texas Senate, we sit together, we work together, we try to work things out, we listen to one another. And I think that the rest of the nation, and certainly the United States Congress, could benefit from the example of this. And one more shout-out to Connie Burton.

You know, I like to take credit for the Texan, because after she lost her election, she said, what should I do? And I said, man, you should go into journalism. And we talked for a long time about that. And so I feel kind of like a parent here, you know? Thank you so much. We appreciate your time. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at The Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us

as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support The Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us. God bless you, and God bless Texas.