States unveil vaccine coordination plan, in snub to RFK Jr.

[drray23]

A coalition of West Coast, Democratic-led states on Wednesday announced a new public health alliance formed in defiance of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with the states saying it will provide “science-driven” advice on vaccines.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) and Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D) announced the launch of the West Coast Health Alliance just days after Kennedy sacked the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The health secretary has also overhauled the CDC’s vaccine advisory board, appointing multiple like-minded vaccine skeptics.

For those who always say Democrats are not fighting back. We have to stand up a shadow government just to survive the Trump years. Apparently, this is starting to occur in areas such as healthcare.

Hopefully, blue states start coordinating many more things together and bypass the nonsense the Trump regime is putting up.

For example, I could see a coalition to deal with disasters, given that FEMA is pretty much neutered.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5483864-west-coast-health-alliance/

[GenThePerservering]

1. We've got the money, the tech and the know-how

As Jay Inslee, our excellent three-term governator once said (paraphrase) "I ignore the noise from the White House".

Dump never forgave him - Inslee just laughed.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. MaddowBlog-To circumvent RFK Jr. on vaccines, Democrats and blue states start getting creative

Ideally, the United States wouldn’t have a patchwork public health system, but the Trump administration hasn’t left blue states with much of a choice.

The list of blue states (or at least states led by Dems) circumventing RFK Jr and Trump on vaccines and public health keeps growing:
- California
- Oregon
- Washington
- Massachusetts
- Illinois
- New Mexico
- Pennsylvania

This shouldn't be necessary, but here we are. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-09-04T13:02:43.631Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/circumvent-rfk-jr-vaccines-democrats-blue-states-start-getting-creativ-rcna229022

Ideally, the United States wouldn’t have a patchwork public health system, with different vaccine recommendations depending on where Americans live. But with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking a sledgehammer to the federal system, once-trusted public health departments reeling under politically imposed chaos and Republican-led states moving in radical and dangerous directions, the national system that has existed for decades without controversy has been rendered unsustainable.

And so, reality-based officials are having to get creative.

NBC News reported, for example, on three West Coast states forging a new public health alliance to provide “credible information” about vaccine safety to the public.

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced Wednesday that they were working to provide unified recommendations to ‘ensure residents remain protected by science, not politics.’ The action comes after months of upheaval at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the firing of the agency’s director last week.

The Democratic governors — Washington’s Bob Ferguson, Oregon’s Tina Kotek and California’s Gavin Newsom — warned that the public would likely face “severe” consequences if the CDC becomes “a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science.”,,,,,,

What’s more, they’re not alone. The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reported last week:

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker’s health department in Illinois is currently exploring the possibility of purchasing Covid-19 vaccines in bulk straight from manufacturers in response to the mess in Washington, a senior Illinois health official confirms to me. Meanwhile, a coalition of mostly blue states led by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey is planning to coordinate on the purchase and distribution of pediatric vaccines, should the federal government restrict access to them, according to a source familiar with ongoing discussions.

Indeed, The Boston Globe reported this week that Healey “essentially wrote a prescription for Covid shots for every person in the state over the age of 5, a move that would blunt potential federal restrictions on Covid boosters.”....

Dr. Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota vaccine expert who heads a project to help states and professional societies make science-based vaccine recommendations, told the Globe this week, “This is one of the most dangerous times that public health has faced in the last 50 years.”

[Wounded Bear]

3. Once again, we don't have a health care system in this country, we have a for-profit health care industry.

I applaud these states for trying to set up a viable system to dispense health care in these regions.

Disclaimer, I live in WA, one of the West Coast states involved in this effort, but I get my health care from the VA, an actual system that only serves a portion of the population.

[keep_left]

4. This is the beginning of the "soft secession" that has been discussed here...

...and elsewhere for years now. The phenomenon arguably began during Covid, when the Trump regime confiscated PPE and other medical supplies and sold them to China--this was while medical professionals had to improvise PPE out of Hefty bags, by the way. "Blue state" governors had to run James Bond-style spy operations to get supplies delivered; these operations were on a truly epic scale, including armed officers, vinyl-wrapped disguises for the trucks, decoy vehicles, encrypted tactical radios, and secure comms.

The signs of breakdown have been there for all to observe for many years, however.

The "blue states" have been quietly opting out of the most regressive and reactionary law and policy favored by the MAGA chuds (and before them, the "Tea Party" movement, etc.)...It started with things like sanctuary cities, ignoring FDA scheduling of cannabis, the devolution of abortion law to the states, and other similar movements over the last 20 years or so. And the ties that bind were further stressed by the Trump regime's disastrous mismanagement of Covid...I really wonder what the country is going to look like in another 20 years.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220583559
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220583559#post3

Years ago, there was even a video game, Shattered Union, which was based on a worst-case Civil War 2.0 scenario.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218111552#post23

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