The Connecticut House passed a controversial bill that expands the state’s authority over vaccine policy by a vote of 89-60 after about six hours of contentious floor debate on Tuesday.
The bill, backed by Democratic Governor Ned Lamont, is in response to uncertainty about changes to CDC vaccine schedules under the Trump Administration.
It gives Connecticut’s public health commissioner the power to set vaccine schedules independent of federal guidelines.
The bill strengthens immunization in the state that’s already the most effective in the nation, said state Representative Cristin McCarthy Vahey (D-Fairfield), the House chair of the Public Health Committee.
“Connecticut now has the highest kindergarten measles vaccination rate in the nation. As a result, we were the last state in the country to have a measles case,” McCarthy Vahey said.
“And when that happened, we didn’t see an outbreak like what happened in other states,” she said.
“Our underlying concern with this bill is that it gives the commissioner too much wiggle room to stray away from what is recommended by science, what is recommended by the CDC, and what their own personal views are,” said House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora (R-North Branford), who led opposition to the bill.
Opponents were also concerned about a provision in the bill that clarifies a 2021 state law that eliminated religious exemptions from public school vaccine mandates.
They claim it’s an attempt to undermine an ongoing court challenge to the law.
