Editorial: CDC chaos a chance for new ideas
Governors Gavin Newsom, left, Tina Kotek, Dr. Josh Green, and Bob Ferguson, have formed the West Coast Health Alliance. Source: Photos: Newsom, Bill Wilson; Kotek, Green, Ferguson, courtesy the subjects

Editorial: CDC chaos a chance for new ideas

BAR Editorial Board READ TIME: 4 MIN.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has created chaos at the nation’s leading health agencies. He has fired thousands of federal workers, changed the classification of COVID vaccines, and undertaken dubious research into the cause of autism, all while remaining a staunch vaccine skeptic. Beyond all of that, he has created disorder at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firing the new director, Dr. Susan Monarez, just a month after she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. That led to several other high-ranking CDC officials to resign, including Dr. Demetre Daskalakis. The CDC, once known as the country’s premiere public health agency, is quickly becoming a shell of its former self.

Kennedy in June removed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Earlier this month, Politico reported that Kennedy announced he’s considering appointing seven new members, many of whom share his skepticism on vaccines. This sends a dangerous signal to the general public, who are now being conditioned to believe that vaccines are bad, no matter how successful they have been. The highly contagious measles, for instance, was eliminated in 2000. This year, it’s made a comeback, with 1,281 cases reported as of July, according to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

But with the CDC’s dismantling comes new opportunities. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced last week that the Golden State, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii have joined together to form the West Coast Health Alliance. The goal, according to a news release from Newsom’s office, will be to provide unified recommendations on immunizations to residents based on science, not politics.

The alliance will help safeguard scientific expertise by ensuring that public health policies in the four states are informed by trusted scientists, clinicians, and other public health leaders, according to Newsom’s office. “Through this partnership, the four states will start coordinating health guidelines by aligning immunization recommendations informed by respected national medical organizations,” the release stated. “This will allow residents to receive consistent, science-based recommendations they can rely on – regardless of shifting federal actions.”

This is especially needed now that school has started and with last week’s development that Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s surgeon general, ended school vaccine requirements in the Sunshine State. Even President Donald Trump expressed some reservations about that, though he has not similarly raised concerns about Kennedy’s actions at HHS.

Regardless, it’s clear that public health is just not a priority for the Trump administration. And we will all pay the price for that, either through resurgence of diseases such as measles, drastically reduced funding for HIV/AIDS and many other diseases, and just a general disdain for public health employees that MAGA has been amplifying through social media and in conservative outlets. There was a time when the public actually listened to public health officials; not anymore.


That can change, however, a few states at a time. And it can start with this new West Coast Health Alliance that the four Democratic governors have formed. In addition to Newsom, there’s lesbian Tina Kotek of Oregon, Bob Ferguson of Washington, and Dr. Josh Green of Hawaii. Green, who was an emergency room physician before being elected governor in 2022, noted in the release that Hawaii had one of the highest vaccination rates for COVID, with 90% of residents getting at least one shot, as of 2023.

The multi-state alliance should be expanded beyond vaccine guidelines. The states should hire some of these former CDC staffers and get to work on expanding access to HIV prevention efforts, like PrEP; fulfill HIV/AIDS services; and expand on the groundbreaking research that’s already being done at public and private universities in the states, sharing the data. The alliance could also collect sexual orientation and gender identity, or SOGI, data, which California is already doing in a limited capacity.

In short, the four states could embrace a mini-CDC, with a robust online presence that includes statistics and health outcomes for all kinds of conditions, incorporating information from each state’s public health department. With mpox seeing a slight uptick in California, now is the time for the states to join in encouraging vaccinations for this virus. While at the CDC, for example, Daskalakis, a gay leatherman, had received acclaim for his intimate connection to the communities he serves, as we previously reported, and that was especially the case during the initial mpox outbreak three years ago. At the time of his departure in late August, Daskalakis was the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and he was previously director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.

It's clear, nine months into the second Trump administration, that neither this president nor his cabinet value federal workers. They’re all trying to out-Trump the president with their efforts to pare back agencies to the minimum. It’s the public that suffers, whether it be in the realm of public health or visiting a national park. Efforts like the West Coast Health Alliance are a positive development, but only if it actually has a presence. We encourage the states to develop messaging on social media that can inform people on the West Coast – and Hawaii – that public health actually helps people.


by BAR Editorial Board

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