West Coast Health Alliance promotes “vaccines for all,” no matter the health risk
Illustration by Zoe Arntsen, Illustrator
Just when I thought our nation, the United States, was headed into an era of unification, we witnessed yet another state-level power grab masquerading as public health.
California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii have newly joined forces and formed the West Coast Health Alliance (WCHA), which, in their words, is a way of maintaining integrity and honesty in public health. An integrity that, on its own, I question the efficacy of. As per WCHA’s recently released vaccine recommendations, it vaguely overlooks individual health needs in broad vaccines for all bases.
Evading the varying health factors amongst the population, WCHA recommends that all children, all seniors, and most notably all pregnant women — without any regard for side effects in fetal development — get vaccinated. During initial COVID-19 vaccine trials, pregnant women were excluded from testing. So how can they, with confidence, build an organization on the basis that recommendations are truly science-based?
A government entity of any kind carries the weight and responsibility of its people. This lack of science-based vaccines for all promotion has shown the erroneous intentions of public health. And how could it not, when medical studies have proven the severe adverse side effects of COVID-19 vaccines to be miscarriage, intrauterine growth restriction, seizure and preterm birth, with a skyrocketing 13.4 million babies being born prematurely since 2020.
This is merely another attempt to decrease population growth rates amid a new generation, due to the overreach of WCHA in trying to reshape public health based on suggestions, not facts. It will cause a reciprocal effect where insurers following federal guidelines for vaccines can be deemed less critical, therefore potentially inflating costs. This is already happening in Portland, where some CVS Pharmacies are unwilling to administer vaccines to those who really need them, like high-risk patients with underlying health conditions.
The new federal CDC guidelines, per the mandate of U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr, are aimed at removing thimerosal, a mercury-based compound, from all vaccines. The CDC is recommending vaccines exclusively for high-risk seniors as a preventative measure. This is not a simple one-recipe-fits-all ideology.
“Democrat-run states that pushed unscientific school lockdowns, toddler mask mandates, and draconian vaccine passports during the COVID era completely eroded the American people’s trust in public health agencies. ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) remains the scientific body guiding immunization recommendations in this country” said Andrew Nixon, HHS Director of Communications, in a statement to The Panther.
Facing pressure from parents, thimerosal was removed from routine childhood immunizations in the early 2000s as a precautionary measure. So to me, it is no coincidence that after its removal, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnoses were only prevalent in one in every 150 children, versus now, following the spike of post-pandemic vaccinations, where it has soared to one in every 31 children being diagnosed with ASD.
The changes under RFK Jr. at HHS and the CDC are being smeared rather than understood, and a linear response by WCHA is just creating more division by alienating states under a one-size-fits-all vaccine model.
After conducting my own primary research by surveying 100 Chapman University students from all across campus, I found that 90.91% of students will not be affected by the new guidelines, and 72.73% are in agreement with the federal CDC changes. Whether it’s in our home base here at Chapman or across the nation, we as Americans don’t need further confusion from an attempt to manipulate those who don’t need vaccines into getting them.