CHICAGO, Ill. (WTWO/WAWV)— Governors from 15 states, including Illinois, launched the Governors Public Health Alliance on Wednesday in an effort to safeguard America’s public health infrastructure.
According to the news release from the Illinois Governor’s Office, this coalition is committed to protecting their states from “The Trump Administration’s erosion of trust and dismantlement of America’s public health infrastructure.” The group claims to be built on months of work behind the scenes, countering the federal government’s “war on science, vaccine misinformation, and stripping of healthcare from millions of Americans.”
Other governors included in the alliance are those from Washington, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, Connecticut, Guam, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.
“Public health should never be politicized. While Donald Trump and RFK Jr. turn the CDC into a misinformation machine and rip healthcare away from working families, I am proud to join my fellow Governors in stepping up to protect our residents,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “When the federal government abandons science for conspiracy theories, slashes Medicaid, and undermines vaccine integrity, states must stand united to defend the facts. Here in Illinois and with my colleagues across the country, I will continue to put science and our people first.”
The Governors Public Health Alliance will represent 37% of the U.S. population and claims it will serve as a unified, cross-state liaison with the global health community. The alliance plans to do this by facilitating cross-state collaboration by bringing together groups to share best practices, surface common challenges, elevating national considerations for vaccine procurement, policy solutions and more.
This also comes after Governor Pritzker signed an executive order on September 12, securing immunization access for Illinoisans after the government released new vaccine guidelines. Governor Pritzker claims that the signing of the order was necessitated by “federal actions, including the abrupt dismissal of top administrators from the CDC, the unilateral shift in FDA approval for some uses of COVID-19 vaccines, and the firing of all members of the independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) board.”
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