Three states on the West Coast and nine states on the Atlantic seaboard are putting together independent coalitions to coordinate vaccine recommendations and other public health activities as an alternative to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

California, Oregon, and Washington announced plans on Wednesday to form a “health alliance” to provide residents with data on vaccines and issue recommendations that contradict those from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other Trump administration health officials. 

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Last week, Kennedy announced on X that Food and Drug Administration approvals for COVID-19 vaccines would be restricted to only those with comorbidities that put them at risk for severe disease, including seniors over age 65.

Within hours, President Donald Trump fired the former CDC director, Susan Monarez, after a month on the job, after she reportedly protested the decision to restrict the COVID-19 shots.

The three West Coast states said in a joint statement that the CDC has become “a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences.”

In June, the governors of Washington, Oregon, and California condemned Kennedy’s decision to dismiss all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, and replace them with those more in line with his vaccine-skeptical point of view. 

ACIP is scheduled to meet on Sept. 18 and 19 to discuss the childhood vaccine schedule, including COVID-19, flu, RSV, measles, and Hepatitis B vaccines. Recommendations from ACIP are used not only to determine insurance coverage for vaccines, but also to set state policy for mandatory vaccines for school-age children. 

Following Monarez’s termination from her CDC post in August, health officials from nine states in the New England and mid-Atlantic regions met in Providence, Rhode Island, to discuss creating their own vaccine recommendations separate from CDC guidance.

Those states, including Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, are not as solidified in their plans as their western counterparts.

Vermont’s interim health commissioner, Julie Arel, confirmed to the Boston Globe on Thursday that the meeting took place and that health officials “haven’t really decided” what the coalition will be doing yet. 

“There may be times where we are looking to provide more information than maybe the CDC is. But every state is going to need to do its own thing,” said Arel.

KENNEDY DEFENDS CDC SHAKE-UP TO REBUILD TRUST IN AGENCY

Several public health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Cardiologists, have issued their own independent recommendations on vaccines for their respective target patient demographics.

Kennedy is scheduled to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Sept. 4. The hearing was announced as the tumult unfolded at the CDC at the end of August, but committee staff confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the event had been scheduled before Monarez’s termination.