Newsom announces West Coast Health Alliance in response to Trump's CDC

SAN FRANCISCO - California Gov. Gavin Newsom, along with his counterparts Tina Kotek in Oregon and Bob Ferguson in Washington State, announced the launch Wednesday of the West Coast Health Alliance. 

"We wanted to make sure we were providing data and information based on best science that was available to our constituents within our states," said Washington State Secretary of Health Dennis Worsham. 

Newsom's office says the alliance is a "regional response" to the Trump administration's "destruction" of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including the mass firing of doctors and scientists, and new restrictions on who can get a COVID shot. 

"People are making decisions who are not vetted in the same way, who don't have the certain expertise and who've had history of being anti-vax in the past," said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease specialist with UCSF. 

Supporters of the Alliance, like Chin-Hong, say it will ensure public health policies in states like California will remain backed by science, regardless of what's happening at the federal level. We're told the Alliance will start coordinating vaccine recommendations and public health guidelines in the coming weeks. 

"I think it's a breath of fresh air in all of this darkness in public health right now," said Chin-Hong. 

In a statement, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services slammed California, Oregon and Washington for forming the West Coast Health Alliance, saying it undermines trust in public health agencies, adding, "HHS will ensure policy is based on gold standard science, not the failed policies of the pandemic."