California, Oregon and Washington announced on Wednesday that they are forming an alliance that will issue its own vaccine recommendations instead of relying on those made by the Trump administration.
The governors of the three states said their new group, the West Coast Health Alliance, “represents a unified regional response to the Trump Administration’s destruction of the U.S. CDC’s credibility and scientific integrity,” in a joint press release.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been in disarray in recent weeks after the Trump administration fired its director, Susan Monarez, reportedly for pushing back against changes to the group that generates vaccine schedule recommendations.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and appointed new members of his own choosing, some of whom have been skeptical of vaccines, earlier this summer.
Three high-level CDC officials also resigned in protest of Monarez’s dismissal.
ACIP is scheduled to meet later this month. The agenda for that meeting includes discussions and possible votes on COVID-19 vaccines’; the hepatitis B vaccine; the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine; and the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. Sen. Bill Cassidy and other lawmakers have called for the meeting to be postponed. Cassidy said any recommendations issued should be “rejected as lacking legitimacy” due to the “lack of scientific process being followed.”
If ACIP recommends changes to the CDC’s vaccine schedule for adults or children, it could impact which vaccines are covered by insurance or offered by pharmacies, provided to children for free by the federal government or required by states for children to attend school. It’s unclear whether the recommendations made by the new alliance would be able to stand in for the federal recommendations in all cases.
Kennedy’s HHS has already taken steps to limit vaccine availability. The Food and Drug Administration issued new restrictions on who is eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccines last week.
The West Coast Health Alliance will align its immunization recommendations with those issued by “respected national medical organizations,” Wednesday’s announcement said, naming the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as organizations whose guidance “remains rooted in rigorous research and clinical expertise.”
“This will allow residents to receive consistent, science-based recommendations they can rely on – regardless of shifting federal actions,” it added.