Many Colorado lawmakers and medical experts were already concerned about how the Trump administration could shake up vaccine recommendations and access in the state. Then Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, dismissed all 17 experts on the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, replacing them with eight new members, many of whom are seen as vaccine skeptics.
But months before the changes at ACIP, state lawmakers approved a bill meant to insulate Colorado from vaccine policies that are inconsistent with scientific evidence. House Bill 25-1027 allows the state Board of Health to go beyond exclusively following ACIP for school vaccine requirements and consider recommendations from doctors’ groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Physicians. It was signed into law in April.
