State Attorney General Ken Paxton is accusing the Texas Medical Association of undermining new federal vaccine guidelines after the group included additional organizations in its list of resources for doctors.
TMA expanded its list of resources for Texas physicians on COVID-19 vaccinations to include recommendations from professional medical associations in addition to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidelines.
TMA said, in a message to its members, it expanded the list of resources in response to the "turbulent landscape surrounding immunizations" that has created uncertainty for physicians.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a statement, referred to the move as a “blatant attempt to undermine” the recent recommendations from the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP.
The ACIP voted last month to recommend vaccination only for adults 65 and older; for younger people, the committee said vaccination should be based on “shared clinical decision making” between an individual and their provider. However, that vote was after eight medical associations were removed. These "liaison organizations" have played a role in reviewing data and literature for the committee for decades.
The CDC approved new guidelines Monday requiring a consultation prior to vaccination.
Dr. Jayesh Shah, president of the TMA, said the organization did include CDC and ACIP recommendations on its list of resources.
“We support evidence-base guidelines,” Shah said. “We also support shared medical decision-making between patients and physicians.”
Shah said the decision between patient and provider is built on trust.
“The board had a deliberation to decide what's the best thing that we can do so that we can give informed decision [making] to our patients and our physicians,” he said.
The expanded list of resources was sent to TMA members, and included the guidelines from various professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians.
The message to members said TMA does not develop its own immunization schedules, but instead refers to "external, evidence-based, professional public health recommendations." The organization said including different sources was brought to one of its councils for discussion.
Paxton’s statement said the organization broke its “longtime practice of referring Texas physicians to the federal government for guidance.”
By including the ACIP recommendations among a larger list, Paxton said the organization was choosing to ignore the recommendations. He claimed the federal government followed “the actual science” rather than “merely trying to get as many jabs into as many arms as possible.” He urged the TMA to reverse the decision, and encouraged "every Texas physician to speak out against this brazen, flawed shift by TMA."
Shah said the goal of the expanded list was to provide physicians with several resources to review that they can use to have that discussion with their patients.
“At the end of the day, whatever we do, we discuss with our patients and we decide what's best based on what patients want, the guidelines and what is the evidence out there,” Shah said.
Shah said medicine is a science and TMA wants to keep the discussion open as science progresses.
“We want to make sure that our members and our patients get the evidence-based data as it comes,” he said.
Abigail Ruhman is KERA’s health reporter. Got a tip? Email Abigail at aruhman@kera.org.
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