Washington is joining California and Oregon in a public health alliance to preserve vaccine access and information following recent turmoil at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gov. Bob Ferguson announced Wednesday that he was joining his fellow West Coast Democratic governors to provide residents with “evidence-based unified recommendations” for immunizations.
“The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences,” Ferguson, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a joint statement. “California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”
Last week, the Trump administration fired CDC Director Susan Monarez after she refused to approve vaccine policies pushed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Senior officials at the agency also resigned in protest.
The aim of the West Coast alliance is to create recommendations for vaccines that will rely on information from “respected national medical organizations,” according to Ferguson’s office. Each state will create their own policies but work together to help give residents credible information.
“When federal agencies abandon evidence-based recommendations in favor of ideology, we cannot continue down that same path,” said Dennis Worsham, Washington’s Secretary of Health, in a statement. “Washington state will not compromise when it comes to our values: Science drives our public health policy.”
Washington, Oregon and California formed a similar partnership during the COVID pandemic to coordinate vaccine recommendations and pandemic restrictions.
It is unclear how the states’ recommendations could affect the availability of vaccines in their states if the federal government does not recommend or require them.
The Food and Drug Administration approved a new round of COVID vaccines last week, but limited their availability only to those at a higher risk. The CDC’s advisory committee on immunization practices is set to meet later this month to discuss its recommendations for the new round.
That committee was overhauled by Kennedy earlier this summer after he removed all of its members and replaced some of them with people who have criticized and spread misinformation about vaccines, according to the Associated Press.
