Hawaii on Thursday joined three fellow Democrat-led West Coast states in a health alliance amid turmoil and shifting vaccine guidance at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The West Coast Health Alliance was formed Wednesday by California, Oregon, and Washington pledging to share public health information to ensure “residents receive credible information free from political interference.”
“Hawaii is proud to stand with our West Coast partners to ensure public health decisions are grounded in science, not politics,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said in a statement. “As an island state, we understand how critical it is to protect our communities from preventable disease. By joining the West Coast Health Alliance, we’re giving Hawaii’s people the same consistent, evidence-based guidance they can trust to keep their families and neighbors safe.
“Using science as our guiding star, Hawaii had the highest vaccination rate and lowest mortality rate of virtually any other state or region across the globe. This approach is critical as we all go forward into an era with severe threats from infectious diseases.”
Democrats across the country have been sharply critical of reforms made by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., especially at the CDC. Kennedy has pledged to return the CDC and other health agencies to “gold-standard, evidence-based science” and “common sense.” He has also vowed to reduce corporate influence and prioritize prevention to fight chronic diseases.
In June, California, Oregon, and Washington condemned Kennedy’s removal of all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Kennedy wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial in June that “without removing the current members,” the Trump administration “would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028.” He reportedly said last week, after the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez, the CDC must execute President Donald Trump’s agenda. Monarez, he said, was dismissed because she was not “aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon criticized Democrat-led states and blamed their COVID-19 pandemic policies for Americans’ distrust in public health agencies.
“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,” Nixon told The Hill.
“ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] remains the scientific body guiding immunization recommendations in this country, and HHS will ensure policy is based on rigorous evidence and gold-standard science, not the failed politics of the pandemic.”
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