JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Your ability to get a COVID shot this fall may depend on where you live. States are setting up different policies around vaccines in response to concerns over federal leadership. NPR's Pien Huang reports.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Washington state is banding together with its neighbors to create a West Coast Health Alliance. Dennis Worsham, Washington's health secretary, says it's a preemptive move.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DENNIS WORSHAM: We're seeing something happen that we're concerned, and we're not going to wait to see how it plays out.
HUANG: Those concerns include staff and budget cuts at federal health agencies, the firing of prominent doctors from vaccine advisory committees and the firing of the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The tipping point came last week, Worsham says, when the Food and Drug Administration put limits on who's eligible for the fall COVID shot.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WORSHAM: We as an alliance will work together to review the data that is being put out in order to make recommendations for the people here in the state of Washington, Oregon and California.
HUANG: Dr. Erica Pan is director of the California Department of Public Health.
ERICA PAN: I'm sad that we are in this place that we have to do this.
HUANG: But the reason they're doing it, she says, is that vaccines do a great job of keeping people healthy.
PAN: Vaccines are one of the most important public health interventions in our lifetimes, after sanitation. And they have saved, you know, millions of lives. And we want to make sure we continue to do that.
HUANG: And the advice from the federal government under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is starting to diverge from those of professional medical groups.
PAN: You know, we do have concerns that access and/or recommendations for safe and effective vaccines could change from the federal level.
HUANG: The CDC's current vaccine advisory committee has not yet weighed in on who should get COVID vaccines this fall. In New Mexico, the delay has prompted Gina DeBlassie, the cabinet secretary for health, to issue a public health order to make the vaccines widely available at pharmacies.
GINA DEBLASSIE: The vaccines are anticipated to be received in the state this month. We just want to make sure that we're ready to go and able to serve New Mexicans.
HUANG: DeBlassie says the demand has been highest for those 65 and up.
DEBLASSIE: But we want to make it available for those that are in high-risk populations or those that are caring for individuals that are in that high-risk group.
HUANG: Massachusetts, which is leading a public health collaboration in the Northeast, has announced that it's requiring insurers to cover vaccines the state recommends. While states with Democratic governors have been zigging to protect vaccine access, the Republican state of Florida has zagged. Yesterday, at a press conference, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo called COVID vaccines poison and said requiring them echoes slavery.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSEPH LADAPO: Who am I, as a government or anyone else or who am I as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body?
HUANG: Ladapo announced that Florida will be working to end all vaccine mandates in the state. His office did not respond to an interview request from NPR. Dr. Susan Kansagra, with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, says many state laws are tied to what the CDC's advisory committee recommends.
SUSAN KANSAGRA: While there's always been some variation state by state in vaccine laws, what we're seeing now is an amplification of that.
HUANG: Given the confusion and instability on the federal level, some states are looking to other sources for their vaccine recommendations. Kansagra says this can be confusing for consumers.
KANSAGRA: Talk to your provider. Get your information from a trusted source around vaccines. And, you know, make sure you understand where to go and your insurance coverage as well, as we navigate this changing landscape.
HUANG: Later this month, state health officials will be watching closely when the CDC's revamped vaccine advisory committee meets to vote on recommendations for COVID, hepatitis B and some other vaccines.
Pien Huang, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
