Democratic governors have set up a “nonpartisan, nonprofit public-health alliance to fill in gaps in pandemic preparedness, infectious-disease tracking, guideline writing, and vaccine stockpiling left by the Trump administration’s funding cuts.” CIDRAP has the news.
The so-called Governors Public Health Alliance, “which represents about a third of the U.S. population, says its creation was fomented by opposition to a series of funding and staffing cuts made by U.S. [HHS] Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” Member states and territories are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Additionally, “a growing number of healthcare providers, scientists, policymakers, and state leaders have stepped in to counter cuts to global and domestic health programs, dwindling public-health expertise at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and misleading and dangerous federal health guidance on topics such as vaccines.” Most public-health authority “resides with states, which decade, for example, which vaccinations children need to enroll in schools. Over 75% of CDC funding goes to state and local health departments.”
Several of the involved governors went on record saying that this new initiative, for instance, could be “more efficient and cost effective.” Hawaii Governor Josh Green cited incidences of “cases of measles and pertussis” that the state did not used to have.
