There's news of a new West Coast alliance to protect public health. Via the Guardian:
In a joint press release, Governors Gavin Newsom of California, Tina Kotek of Oregon, and Bob Ferguson of Washington said the CDC had become a “political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science”.
“President 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 Democratic governors said in a joint statement, adding: “California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”
They are forming the West Coast Health Alliance to protect access to vaccines in their states. Sorry, Florida. The inmates are in charge of the asylum, as News Hound Ellen points out.
The move comes days after the White House forced out the newly confirmed director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, who had clashed with Kennedy, Trump’s secretary of the US health and human services department (HHS), over his efforts to reshape federal vaccine policies in ways that contradict established scientific research. Her firing, just weeks after her confirmation, prompted several senior officials to resign in protest and has led to rising calls from lawmakers, scientists and former agency employees for Kennedy to step down. Monarez was replaced by a Trump loyalist with no medical or scientific background.
He argued that the organization’s “dysfunction” was responsible for “irrational policy” during the Covid pandemic, leading to a disproportionately large number of deaths recorded in the US compared with the global average.
