CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Parents in Texas now have a new option if they want to exempt their children from school-required vaccines — they can download the exemption form online.

It’s a significant change from the old process, which required parents to request the form by mail — a system vaccine-choice advocates say often caused delays and sometimes kept children from getting enrolled on time.

Access to the downloadable form stems from House Bill 1586, which took effect Monday. The law streamlines the process, allowing parents to get the form instantly from the Texas Department of State Health Services website.

Rebecca Hardy with Texans for Vaccine Choice says the change fixes a major problem — wait times that once stretched for months.

"Parents were often put in a position of, ‘Do I ke

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