Northeast US states form health alliance in response to federal vaccine limits [View all]
Source: Reuters
September 18, 2025 3:30 PM EDT Updated 1 hour ago
NEW YORK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Seven northeastern U.S. states, including New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, have banded together to form a new public health coalition that will make its own vaccine recommendations in response to the Trump administration's changes to federal vaccine policy. The effort, called the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, resembles a similar collective of California and three other western states known as the West Coast Health Alliance, which issued its own vaccine recommendations on Wednesday that went further than the federal government's latest guidelines.
The Northeast group includes Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island, as well as New York City, the largest U.S. city. Both groups are comprised solely of Democratic-led states. In both cases, the coalitions reflect an attempt to overcome federal limits on vaccine accessibility, including for COVID-19, under the leadership of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic.
In June, Kennedy fired all members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's panel of vaccine experts, which votes on who should receive vaccines and on what schedule, and later replaced them with his own advisers, many of whom share his vaccine skepticism. Insurers typically use the panel's recommendations to determine coverage for inoculations. The panel was meeting on Thursday and Friday to consider whether to alter the nation's childhood immunization schedule, which medical experts warn could lead to preventable deaths.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Thursday that the Northeast coalition had agreed that updated COVID-19 vaccines should be given to children ages six months to 18 years, older children and adults with certain risk factors and adults older than 64. The group also said that all adults are recommended to be vaccinated.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/northeast-us-states-form-health-alliance-response-federal-vaccine-limits-2025-09-18/
From NYC -
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@MarkLevineNYC
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Big news: With RFK Jr waging an all-out war on science, Northeast states are standing up the Northeast Public Health Collaborative to make our own vaccine recommendations and coordinate strategy. Includes NYS, NYC, NJ, MA, CT, RI, PA & ME.
We need much more of this.
Map by NY Times
3:40 PM · Sep 18, 2025
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