Anti-vaccine advocates have called on the Trump administration to cut education funds for states that don’t offer vaccine exemptions.
Connecticut pediatricians and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) pushed back at a news briefing at the Community Health Center in Hartford on Tuesday.
Blumenthal said that the federal government shouldn’t penalize states like Connecticut that don’t allow religious exemptions from childhood vaccinations.
“Listen to the science, we know vaccines work. Reject the proposals to withhold funding from states like Connecticut that have high vaccination rates, 92.8% proudly,” he said.
Vaccinations keep kids out of the hospital, said Dr. Ian Michelow, head of pediatric infectious disease and immunology at Hartford's Connecticut Children’s Hospital.
“We do not want these children to be admitted in the first place,” he said. “And to get the severe complications that linger for a long time and sometimes cause permanent damage. And be serious enough to land children in the ICU, and sometimes death,” Michelow said.
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to defund schools with COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Advocates linked to Children’s Health Defense, founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., want to extend that to schools in states without religious vaccination exemptions.
