AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This week, the Food and Drug Administration approved the next round of COVID-19 vaccines, but imposed new restrictions on who is eligible to get vaccinated. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, has spent years challenging established science around vaccine safety. As John Daley reports from Denver, that has some states, like Colorado, seeking out their own vaccine guidance.
JOHN DALEY, BYLINE: Each state has its own laws establishing what vaccinations are required for school-age children. Most of these vaccine schedules are similar because the states look to recommendations coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidance. But earlier this year, Secretary Kennedy fired and replaced every member of the vaccine advisory panel that guides the CDC by developing recommendations on how vaccines are used in the U.S. Doctors and vaccine scientists were alarmed - like Dr. Allison Kempe.
ALLISON KEMPE: There's now going to be much more confusion and distrust of vaccines among the public.
DALEY: Kempe is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado who served on that advisory panel years ago. She worries the new panelists will fall in line with Kennedy, who worked for years as an antivaccine activist. His agency is already narrowing some of the guidance for who should get COVID-19 vaccines this year over the objections of key physician groups. Democratic lawmakers in Colorado anticipated Kennedy's moves, and they took action.
KYLE MULLICA: You could see the writing on the wall that it was just becoming overly politicized rather than relying on actual science with this new HHS director.
DALEY: That's State Senator Kyle Mullica, a Democrat, who's also an ER nurse. He cosponsored a new law that tells the state Board of Health it may look to scientific sources beyond the CDC when putting together its vaccine recommendations for state residents. The health board can now also consult with leading medical groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
MULLICA: We decided to protect Colorado and make sure that - you know, in Colorado that we wouldn't be as vulnerable to political upheaval that we're seeing right now.
DALEY: The Democratically controlled legislature passed the bill on a party-line vote, and Democratic Governor Jared Polis signed it. Republicans voted against it, but declined an interview request.
Another cosponsor of the bill, State Representative Lindsay Gilchrist, a Democrat, says there's so much false information circulating about vaccines, including for COVID-19, so it's important to hear from top medical experts.
LINDSAY GILCHRIST: Especially around disease control and immunization policy, we need to be really clear.
DALEY: Dr. David Higgins is a pediatrician at the University of Colorado who helped craft the bill.
DAVID HIGGINS: Colorado, I think, really is leading the way on this.
DALEY: Higgins says other states, like Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania and Michigan, are exploring similar ideas, like removing references to the federal vaccine panel or trying to protect vaccine access. In an email responding to NPR's request for comment, HHS press secretary Emily G. Hilliard pointed NPR to a statement Kennedy posted on X, in which he said the new panel members are, quote, "committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science and common sense." Meanwhile, Kempe, the pediatrician, says she's glad Colorado is actively forging ahead with its own recommendations.
KEMPE: I think in Colorado we really are pretty protected.
DALEY: The rift between the federal government and outside vaccine experts has already begun to play out. While the Food and Drug Administration moved to further restrict access to this year's COVID vaccine, the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that kids under 23 months get the shot.
For NPR News, I'm John Daley in Denver.
CHANG: This story comes from NPR's reporting partnership with Colorado Public Radio and KFF Health News.
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