As Florida plans to end all vaccine mandates, Western states form vaccine alliance

Image caption: A health care worker fills a syringe with the MMR vaccine at a vaccine clinic in Texas in March. Florida announced plans to end all state vaccine mandates, while three Western states — California, Oregon and Washington — are forming an alliance to issue their own vaccine guidelines amid federal upheaval. (Photo by Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images)

The Democratic governors of California, Oregon and Washington said Wednesday they are forming an alliance to coordinate vaccine recommendations for their states.

Meanwhile, Florida announced plans to become the first state to phase out all vaccine mandates, including ending requirements that kids be vaccinated against dangerous diseases before enrolling in schools.

Public health experts have relied on vaccines, including school mandates, for decades to limit the spread of communicable diseases and keep kids and adults safe.

The contrasting moves come amid turmoil at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where several top leaders resigned last week to protest efforts by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to dismiss CDC Director Susan Monarez for pushing back against Kennedy’s vaccine policies.

Accompanied by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo said at a news conference Wednesday that vaccine mandates are “wrong” and “immoral,” the Florida Phoenix reported.

“Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God,” Ladapo said.

“They do not have the right to tell you what you put in your body. They don’t have the right to tell you what your kids have to put in [their] body. They do not have the right. Do not give it to them. Take it away from them. And we’re going to be starting that here in Florida.”

The Florida Department of Health can eliminate some vaccine mandates on its own, Ladapo said, but the Florida legislature would have to scrap other ones. He did not mention specific vaccines, but repeated that his goal was to end “all of them. Every last one of them.”

“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said.

The goal of the new West Coast Health Alliance, governors said, is to disseminate evidence-based recommendations about who should get immunized, as well as to provide vaccine education throughout the three states. In the coming weeks, the states will coordinate and finalize immunization guidelines that are in line with leading medical organizations.

In their announcements, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson criticized recent Trump administration actions, including the firing of scientists and the upheaval at the CDC.

“When federal agencies abandon evidence-based recommendations in favor of ideology, we cannot continue down that same path,” Washington Secretary of Health Dennis Worsham said in a statement.

Worsham added that “public health at its core is about prevention — preventing illness, preventing the spread of disease, and preventing early, avoidable deaths.”

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration restricted access to updated COVID-19 shots. In June, Kennedy ousted all 17 members of the vaccine advisory committee at the CDC, replacing them with some members who are vaccine skeptics. Many states rely on the committee to form vaccination guidelines.

And in May, Kennedy rescinded recommendations for children and pregnant women to get vaccinated against COVID-19 — sidestepping the usual process for issuing official recommendations.

The three Western states said the “dismantling” of the CDC has created “a vacuum of clear, evidence-based vaccine guidance,” hampering health care providers, disrupting manufacturers’ production plans and creating uncertainty for families.

In 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the three states, along with Nevada, created a similar workgroup that emphasized the scientific rigor behind the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in an effort to boost confidence in the shot.

“President Donald Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists — and his blatant politicization of the agency — is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people,” the joint statement from the three governors’ offices said.

“The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences. California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.