SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
This week, a federal judge paused the major changes Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been making to vaccine policy. Democratic-led states have been pushing back against the Trump administration's changes. John Daley at Colorado Public Radio explains how that state is taking vaccine policy into its own hands.
JOHN DALEY, BYLINE: In response to the changes at the federal level, a new group called Colorado Chooses Vaccines popped up last year. Former Denver City Council member Carol Boigon joined. Her goal is to share her story as widely as possible.
CAROL BOIGON: Every summer, everybody got sick. And one summer, it was my turn not just to get sick but to get disabled from it.
DALEY: It was polio. Boigon grew up in Detroit, and in 1953, polio was rampant.
BOIGON: The whole block was sick, and some of us got crippled. And that was just the way it was.
DALEY: Boigon was 5.
BOIGON: None of my limbs worked immediately afterwards.
DALEY: In the end, it was her right arm that never fully recovered. She shows me it's smaller, skinnier and weaker.
BOIGON: I'm a one-armed person, basically.
DALEY: Just one year after she got sick, the vaccine arrived.
BOIGON: After 1954, it was a new world.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: With the monumental reports that prove the Salk vaccine against crippling polio to be a sensational success.
DALEY: Now health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended the CDC's role in vaccine science and decision-making. His appointees took some childhood vaccines off the federal recommendation list, like the shots for hepatitis B, flu and RSV. Here's Secretary Kennedy talking to CBS.
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ROBERT F KENNEDY JR: We're not taking vaccines away from anybody. If you want to get the vaccine, you can get it. It's going to be fully covered by insurance, just like it was before.
DALEY: When asked if the changes might mean fewer people get the flu shot, Kennedy said...
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KENNEDY: Well, that may be. And maybe that's a better thing.
DALEY: Major medical groups, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, say that's definitely not a better thing. More people will get sick. Dr. Sean O'Leary is chairman of an infectious disease panel for the Academy of Pediatrics, and he helped found the Colorado coalition. He says it aims to motivate more people who support vaccines to speak out, like everyday parents, teachers and business owners.
SEAN O'LEARY: The folks who don't really think about immunizations all that often. I think what we're doing here with this coalition is really creating a broader tent.
DALEY: Colorado has joined other states to sue over the changes the CDC made, and in the state legislature, the Democratic majority pushed forward a new bill. It allows Colorado to seek out other scientific sources for vaccine guidance besides the CDC, like the Academy of Pediatrics. State Senator Kyle Mullica is a co-sponsor.
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KYLE MULLICA: We are insulating our state from the dysfunction coming out of Washington. In this state, we're going to rely on science.
DALEY: The bill would also allow pharmacists to prescribe and give vaccines on their own. Republicans, like state Senator John Carson, have come out against the bill.
JOHN CARTER: I just want to make sure we're not just getting into a big political dispute between the federal recommendations, the CDC and so forth, and different political views in Colorado here.
DALEY: Carol Boigon says it's hard to believe what is happening with vaccines these days.
BOIGON: It's like we're going backwards. It's like we have decided we don't want a modern life. We want to be back in the 1950s, where children are sick and dying.
DALEY: The vaccine bill has cleared the legislature and now goes to Governor Jared Polis, who is expected to sign it into law.
For NPR News, I'm John Daley in Denver.
SIMON: That story comes from NPR's partnership with Colorado Public Radio and KFF Health News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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