For nearly a century, vaccines have helped ensure that children can grow into healthy, thriving adults. The days when a neighborhood child might be left with lifelong paralysis from polio, when a family lost a little one to measles, or when an infant was hospitalized from severe rotavirus dehydration feel distant now — and they’re distant because vaccines made those tragedies rare.
As the new year began, federal health officials abruptly stripped away long‑standing universal childhood vaccine recommendations — despite no new scientific discovery or shift in medical understanding to justify such a move. The science behind vaccines remains as solid as ever, but these changes inject confusion and unnecessary risk into a system that has long protected our kids, opening the door to very real harm for Colorado’s children.
We’re already seeing the consequences when vaccination rates slip. This year’s flu season is the worst in a quarter century and has driven at least 280,000 Americans to the hospital and claimed the lives of 52 children nationwide, including four here in Colorado. At the same time, flu vaccination rates among kids in our state have only reached 33% as of early February. Measles, too, is surging: The nation is facing its largest outbreak since 1991, with 733 reported cases in just the past six weeks.
In my 30 years as a pediatrician, I’ve cared for infants so severely dehydrated from rotavirus that they required IV fluids, toddlers gasping for breath with RSV, and previously healthy school‑aged children suddenly fighting for their lives against meningococcal meningitis. These are not abstract statistics. They are real children and families enduring suffering we have long known how to prevent.
Fortunately, Colorado anticipated this moment. As of December, the Colorado Board of Health officially adopted the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) evidence‑based schedule — which still recommends routine vaccination for all 17 diseases.
But the work isn’t finished. Under the new approach taken by the federal Secretary of Health and Human Services, vaccines that were long recommended for all children — such as hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, RSV, flu and meningococcal disease — are no longer considered universally necessary. Instead, they’ve been relegated to high‑risk categories or placed under “shared clinical decision‑making,” a designation that shifts the burden onto individual families and providers to sort through what has already been firmly established by decades of research.
Rather than receiving clear, evidence‑based guidance, parents are now left navigating a maze of uncertainty, and clinicians are forced to spend precious time revisiting the well‑proven benefits and safety of vaccines that once had unequivocal support. This kind of ambiguity erodes trust and undermines the decades of progress we’ve made using safe, effective immunizations to protect children.
That’s why, at a time when federal vaccine guidance is becoming increasingly unstable, Colorado lawmakers are stepping up this session with Senate Bill 32, also known as the Promoting Immunization Access for Coloradans Act. This legislation would update state law to ensure families continue receiving consistent, science‑based vaccination recommendations.
It would empower Colorado to consider the guidance of trusted medical authorities, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians, and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It also would strengthen our immunization workforce by formally recognizing pharmacists’ authority to prescribe and administer vaccines and by extending liability protections to all licensed vaccine providers, helping ensure safe and smooth vaccine delivery across clinics, hospitals and pharmacies. And, in a tight fiscal year, it would not cost the state anything to implement.
As a parent, you deserve the freedom to protect your children without barriers or uncertainty. This bill would not add any new mandates or change existing exemption policies; instead, it would safeguard access by guaranteeing that expert‑recommended vaccines remain available at no cost to families, no matter their insurance status or where they live.
In a time of national upheaval, this legislation brings Colorado exactly what our children need: stability, clarity and a firm commitment to science.
Colorado’s swift reaffirmation of evidence‑based guidance for vaccines shows that our state understands the stakes. Protecting and caring for children requires our unwavering commitment to scientific evidence — not improvisation or political pressure.
Dr. Edwin J. Asturias, of Denver, is a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Colorado and is a former member of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
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