In the latest attempt to push back on changing federal health policy under President Donald Trump’s administration, Colorado has joined with 13 other states and one territory to form a new group called the Governors Public Health Alliance.
The alliance, which was announced this week, will coordinate state efforts and expertise on best practices, vaccine policy, data collection and disease response.
“Every American deserves access to health care and this alliance will strengthen public health for everyone,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement Wednesday announcing the new alliance.
The effort is another sign of how states, especially ones led by Democrats, are ditching their reliance on federal health systems such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration and creating their own systems. The overarching U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is now overseen by longtime vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has used the position to advance beliefs unsupported by the scientific consensus.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)Under Kennedy, the department has imposed new restrictions on vaccines and the vaccine approval process, questioned the use of fluoride in drinking water, and pushed concerns about the use of Tylenol during pregnancy. KFF Health News this week reported that the department will investigate the “chemtrails” conspiracy theory that airplanes are releasing toxic gases that are poisoning the public. Early in his second term, Trump issued an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization.
The new alliance will help states coordinate on public health messaging about emerging threats like new diseases, securely share data about health issues, and connect with health agencies internationally.
The alliance is being supported by a group called GovAct, which helps governors coordinate on a bunch of issues. The organization has also helped support multistate alliances on abortion access and strengthening democracy. Colorado is a member of both of those alliances, too, and Polis cochairs the latter.
In addition to Colorado, the founding members of the alliance are the governors of: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Guam. Each of those governors is a Democrat, though Polis said in his statement that the alliance is intended to be nonpartisan.
GovAct also bills itself as nonpartisan, and both Republican and Democratic former governors from across the country sit on its advisory board.
Jake Williams, the executive director of the left-leaning advocacy organization Healthier Colorado, said the alliance is a positive for Colorado because it will provide another resource people can look to for trustworthy information. He said he is hopeful the alliance will also increase the state’s ability to respond to new disease outbreaks and ensure access to vaccines and other medical treatments that may come under attack by the Trump administration.
“Americans would be best served if states and the federal government and science were all in alignment,” Williams said. “But the reality is that alignment does not exist right now. I think we need to do the best at the state level we can to provide accurate information.”
He said the alliance will also be valuable in boosting the visibility of messages coming from medical professional organizations like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which have increasingly issued guidance that pushes back against changing federal policy. He noted a poll from the health policy think tank KFF that found more than 60% of Americans trust the vaccine guidance produced by those two organizations.
“I hope that alignment will give people clarity,” he said.
Maria Gaither receives a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, August 11, 2021, at a Denver Health mobile vaccine clinic. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun)In a statement to The Washington Post responding to the formation of the new public health alliance, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon criticized Democratic governors for their decisions during the COVID pandemic, such as mask requirements or stay-at-home orders. Nixon said those orders eroded trust in public health.
“Now, the same governors who eroded that trust are trying to reinvent public health under the guise of ‘coordination,’” Nixon said in the statement. “The Trump Administration and Secretary Kennedy are rebuilding that trust by grounding every policy in rigorous evidence and gold standard science — not the failed politics of the pandemic.”
Polis, in his statement, framed the debate differently.
“This new partnership will help states deliver consistent, commonsense solutions that prevent the spread of disease, save lives and protect our freedom,” he said.
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