This photo combination shows, from left, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. JENNY KANE LINDSEY WASSON GODOFREDO A. VÁSQUEZ / AP
The Democratic governors of Washington, Oregon and California announced Wednesday, September 3, that they have created an alliance to establish their own recommendations for who should receive vaccines because they believe the Trump administration is putting Americans’ health at risk by politicizing the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The announcement came the same day that Florida said it will phase out all childhood vaccine mandates. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to curb vaccine requirements and other health mandates that evolved during the Covid-19 pandemic in his state.
The differing responses come as Covid-19 cases rise and as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has restructured and downsized the CDC and attempted to advance anti-vaccine policies that are contradicted by decades of scientific research. Concerns about staffing and budget cuts were heightened after the White House sought to oust the agency’s director and some top CDC leaders resigned in protest. “The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences,” the governors said in a joint statement.
“The dismantling of public health and dismissal of experienced and respected health leaders and advisers, along with the lack of using science, data, and evidence to improve our nation’s health are placing lives at risk,” California State Health Officer Erica Pan said in the news release.
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Washington state Health Secretary Dennis Worsham said public health is about prevention – “preventing illness, preventing the spread of disease, and preventing early, avoidable deaths.” “Vaccines are among the most powerful tools in modern medicine; they have indisputably saved millions of lives,” Oregon Health Director Sejal Hathi said. “But when guidance about their use becomes inconsistent or politicized, it undermines public trust at precisely the moment we need it most.”
More than 1,000 current and former workers from the federal health department signed a scathing letter to Congress Wednesday accusing Kennedy of putting the health of Americans at risk and demanding that he resign.
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Coordinate vaccine recommendations
The three states plan to coordinate their vaccine recommendations and immunization plans based on science-based evidence from respected national medical organizations, said a joint statement from Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington, Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.
US Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew G. Nixon shot back in a statement Wednesday, saying that “Democrat-run states that pushed unscientific school lockdowns, toddler mask mandates, and draconian vaccine passports during the Covid era completely eroded the American people’s trust in public health agencies.”
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Meanwhile, public health agencies across the country have started taking steps to ensure their states have access to vaccines after US regulators came out with new policies that limited access to Covid-19 shots.
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New Mexico said it was updating its protocols to allow the state’s pharmacists to consider recommendations from the state’s health department when administering vaccines, rather than just the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. “This order will remove obstacles to vaccination access” when it goes into effect by the end of next month, Health Secretary Gina DeBlassie said in a statement.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat who has been critical of federal cuts to public health funding and restrictions on vaccines, said her state was leading the bipartisan coalition. “We’re going to make sure that people get the vaccines they need – no matter what the Trump Administration does,” she said in a statement.
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