Doctors, lawmakers urge Gretchen Whitmer to make stand for science, vaccines

The Trump administration has challenged long held public health practices and fired countless federal staff, saying the changes are necessary to cut costs and “Make America Healthy Again.” Photo credit: Dale Young for Bridge Michigan.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan (bridgemi.com), a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from Bridge Michigan, sign up for a free Bridge Michigan newsletter here (https://bit.ly/BridgeMichiganNewsletter).” 

by Robin Erb, (Bridge Michigan)

A group of public health professionals, lawmakers and citizens is calling on the state of Michigan to partner with other states to create a regional public health compact that could ensure continued vaccine access.

The effort would be modeled after — or the state could join — the Governors Public Health Alliance, a partnership of 15 Democratic governors, said Ellen Sugrue Hyman, a Lansing-based attorney and public health advocate. The alliance formed in October to act as a multi-state health authority as federal public health agencies face deep cuts in funding and staff and long-held public health practices came under fire.

The online petition drive, Hyman said, was inspired by the national Defend Public Health, a nonprofit that describes itself as a “volunteer-driven network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect the health of all.”

Most immediately, the group’s focus is on continuing access to vaccines and to Medicaid, the public insurance for low-income residents, she said.

The group asks Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration to:

• Declare a public health emergency based on increased health disparities and plummeting vaccine rates
• Work with other states to form a regional health compact to promote vaccines and ensure they remain accessible
• Form a public-private work group to identify ways to maintain “an emergency level of health care coverage” for Michiganders who lose Medicaid coverage as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The goal is small — just 800 signatures, and the petition is nonbinding, its supporters acknowledge.

But the point is to raise awareness about what they see as threats to public health, Hyman said.

In that time, the Trump administration has slashed billions of dollars in funding for research and clinical trials, laid off — and then brought back — public health staff and fired the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its entire board of vaccine advisors.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has said the moves are necessary to streamline costly federal agencies, to restore public trust and to redirect a national focus from costly health care to disease prevention.

That doesn’t sit well with some public health officials, CDC staff and nine former directors, and dozens of leading medical organizations who say Kennedy and Trump have made decisions based on ideology rather than science.

“It’s important to say there has to be an alternate source of authority that is trustworthy and reliable and stands up and says ‘Science drives our decisions,’” said Robert Lyerla, a retired captain in the US Public Health Service, an instructor at Western Michigan University, and a member of the steering committee behind the Michigan petition.

Among other supporters of the petition drive are Democratic state Rep. Carrie Rheingans from Ann Arbor, who has a master’s degree in public health, and Dr. Mathew Longjohn, a Democrat state representative from Portage.

While Whitmer has occasionally criticized Trump since he returned to office in January, she’s also attempted to work with the president and largely avoided the charged responses of some Democratic peers. Earlier this year, she quit the National Governors Association over what her office called a lack of “bipartisan initiatives.”

Whitmer has repeatedly endorsed the use of vaccines, signing an executive directive instructing state agencies to “identify and remove any barriers to accessing COVID-19 vaccines.”

Additionally, state leaders are working with “state and federal partners” to address deep cuts in Medicaid ahead, said Lynn Sutfin, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.