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US West Coast states announce new agency for vaccine guidelines / Photo: Patrick T. Fallon - AFP/File
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US West Coast states announce new agency for vaccine guidelines
California, Washington and Oregon announced Wednesday they will form a new public health body to issue vaccine guidelines, saying the move is needed to counter the Trump administration's growing "politicization" of science.
The planned "West Coast Health Alliance" comes amid turmoil at the federal level following the ouster of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Sue Monarez, who had clashed with Health Secretary and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over immunization policy.
The alliance's formation comes after mass layoffs at the CDC, and a shooting outside the agency's headquarters in Atlanta by an anti-vaccine gunman that left a police officer dead.
"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," California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a joint statement with officials from the other two states.
"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," added Newsom, one of the country's most prominent anti-Trump politicians.
The statement said the alliance will work with scientists and medical associations to finalize shared principles "in the coming weeks."
Under Kennedy's leadership, the federal health department has restricted access to Covid-19 vaccines, cut off funding for the mRNA technology credited with saving millions of lives during the pandemic, and dismissed a panel of independent experts that advises the CDC on immunization policy.
A new panel of handpicked experts promptly voted to remove a vaccine preservative long at the center of conspiracy theories linking it to autism, despite decades of research showing it is safe.
Kennedy, who has made promoting the debunked link between vaccines and autism a personal crusade, has vowed to unveil new information on the causes of the neurodevelopmental disorder this month.
P.T.Bartels--BlnAP
