With rapidly changing federal vaccine policy and confusion about guidelines, eligibility and insurance coverage, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive directive Wednesday, Sept. 17, that orders state agencies to identify and remove barriers that could hinder Michiganders’ access to COVID-19 vaccines.
“Cold, flu, and COVID-19 season are upon us,” Whitmer said in a statement. “We all have a role to play in keeping our communities safe and healthy. Today’s executive directive ensures Michiganders can get the COVID-19 vaccine if it’s right for them. According to medical experts, vaccines remain the most effective way to stay healthy.”
Whitmer’s directive instructs the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), the state Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) and the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) to:
It wasn’t immediately clear exactly how those departments are to carry out the governor’s directive.
Michigan joins a growing list of states where governors and public health leaders have improved access to COVID-19 vaccines as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. makes unprecedented and sweeping changes to the ways in which vaccines are recommended and reviewed nationally.
Kennedy announced in May that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women. And in August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration changed the labels on the vaccines, saying they should be given only to people older than 65 and to younger Americans with at least one preexisting health condition that puts them at high risk for severe disease with COVID-19.
He also fired Susan Monarez, the director of the CDC, following a dispute over vaccines, and dismissed all 17 members of an independent vaccine advisory panel that makes recommendations to the CDC. He replaced them with his own appointees, many of whom are vaccine skeptics.
Called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the newly picked members of the panel are scheduled to meet Sept. 18 and 19 to discuss the safety and efficacy of vaccines that protect people from measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox, hepatitis B and COVID-19.
That has many worried about whether further limits could be placed on long-approved and recommended vaccines and whether ACIP could alter the childhood immunization schedule.
Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, an infectious disease specialist who also is the chief medical executive for MDHHS, told the Detroit Free Press in late August that the nation is in “uncharted waters” with Kennedy Jr. at the helm of public health.
Already, Bagdasarian and MDHHS broke with the CDC and recommended all Michiganders 6 months and older get updated COVID-19 vaccines this season.
“I want to point out that when CDC changed their language, this was not based on data or a new review of existing data,” she said in a late August interview. “This was simply a language change. The data still has not changed. The data still supports the benefit of COVID vaccines over any kind of risk, especially for pregnant women, which was one of the populations that CDC changed some of their language around.”
Michigan and other states are “now taking a stronger leadership role” and are issuing their own recommendations to align with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Whitmer’s directive expanding COVID-19 vaccine access also comes as Michigan experiences a surge in coronavirus cases.
The CDC reported that the number of infections statewide were growing as of Sept. 9. WastewaterSCAN’s dashboard shows high levels of SARS-CoV-2 virus in the wastewater nationally over the last 21 days, including in Michigan.
Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Whitmer issues executive directive easing access to COVID-19 vaccines in Michigan
Reporting by Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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