Vermont Conversation: Dr. Becca Bell on the chaos at the CDC, and the uneven future of vaccine access

[erronis]

https://vtdigger.org/2025/09/03/vermont-conversation-dr-becca-bell-on-the-chaos-at-the-cdc-and-the-uneven-future-of-vaccine-access/
David Goodman

The Vermont pediatrician warned that Medicaid cuts, which will result in some 45,000 Vermonters losing health insurance, will fall hardest on children. One third of Medicaid enrollees in the state are children.

The Centers for Disease Control, the nation’s top public health agency, is in chaos following the firing of its director by President Donald Trump and the resignations of its top leaders last week. Nine former CDC directors wrote in the New York Times this week that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, who spearhead the purge of the CDC and is a longtime leader of the anti-vaccine movement, is “endangering every American’s health.”

States are increasingly spurning Kennedy and taking health matters into their own hands. Northeastern states, including Vermont, have formed a regional health coalition in response to concerns about federal vaccine guidance. The governors of California, Washington and Oregon declared this week said that the CDC has become “a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science … that will lead to severe health consequences.” The three western states are banding together to coordinate their own vaccine policy.

. . .

“What we’re about to see with that One Big Beautiful Bill Act (is) a huge transfer of resources from low income folks to the highest earners in this country,” said Bell. “Accessible, affordable health care is what kids need to succeed and for families to succeed, and so we are deeply concerned about the future of pediatric health care because our foundation is Medicaid. This is how we care for kids. It’s what supports our clinics.”

“The lack of investment in children is just really concerning and very short sighted.”