17 States Say They Will Not Follow CDC's New Immunization Schedules
Since the CDC pared down the number of universally recommended immunizations, seventeen states have announced they won’t follow the new schedule. CIDRAP has the news.
The states pushing back are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. These states say they “plan to follow vaccine guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which continues to recommend immunization plans approved by the CDC prior to the Trump administration.”
Robbie Goldstein, Massachusetts’s public health commissioner, said that the new immunization policy “abandons decades of rigorous, evidence-based science and replaces clear public health guidance with confusion and doubt.” Other public health officials are voicing similar concerns.
The AAP and more than 200 health groups “sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers ‘to conduct swift and robust oversight regarding the abrupt changes to the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule.’” Additionally, health officials across the country have banded together to “protect vaccine access and provide evidence-based health information to their residents.” Legislation has also been passed in some states aiming to protect access to vaccines.
