States Can Protect Public Health When the Feds Do Nothing

Lessons from California and AIDS

by Suzanne Gordon September 18, 2025

On September 3rd, in response to health-threatening policies implemented by President Donald Trump and his secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the governors of California, Oregon, and Washington (soon to be joined by the governor of Hawaii) announced a “unique” partnership.

According to their initial press release, “President Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists—and his blatant politicization of the agency—is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people … California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”

To mitigate this risk, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green have formed the West Coast Health Alliance, which will give residents of the four states “accurate information and evidence-based public health recommendations about vaccines and public health.”

SNIP
In the 1980s, when the world faced the emerging AIDS epidemic, the federal government, led by President Ronald Reagan, promoted public-health policies that seemed to be guided by ideology and prejudice rather than scientific evidence. In the face of government resistance and inaction, California launched novel and wide-ranging public-health programs designed not only to gather and distribute accurate information about AIDS, but also to find treatments and a cure. More than 40 years later, California’s initiatives of the 1980s to combat HIV/AIDS offer useful lessons—that some California leaders of today may have forgotten—about how states can counter dangerous federal policies and take the lead in protecting public health.
https://prospect.org/health/2025-09-18-states-can-protect-public-health-when-feds-do-nothing/