Friends,
While it still feels like summer in Georgia, fall is officially here, which means that the start of the next legislative session is just around the corner! I recently went to the Georgia House chamber to check out the massive renovations that started this Spring–I’m told the project should be finished by the end of October, but will certainly need to be done by the second Monday in January, when we all return to the Capitol.
While session itself usually only spans the first quarter, the work of the state legislature continues year round, consisting of work in and around the district, constituent services, working with community leaders on policy priorities, study committees, and helping ensure that Georgians are well engaged with the workings of their state and federal government.
Most legislatures also have “day jobs” that they return to when session ends, and as a practicing physician I’ve noted both from my patients and my constituents that there has been a high level of confusion and concern around vaccine access, health policy, and the federal changes seeking to disrupt (and indeed destroy) some of the keystones of our public health system.
These issues, in particular access to the COVID vaccine in Georgia, will the be focus of this month’s newsletter. I am writing this the evening of Saturday, September 13th, and while some significant things may change in the upcoming week, I’m going to discuss where we are right now.
You ready? Let’s go.
COVID VACCINE ACCESS IN GEORGIA
On February 13th, Ropert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. Since that time, we have seen an immediate and alarming erosion in the approaches, systems, and manpower this country has relied on for decades to keep Americans healthy.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in this administration’s attack on the practice of vaccination.
Shrai Popat / The Guardian
(Read full article and watch video here)
With a long and extensively documented history of challenging vaccine safety and effectiveness, espousing theories and approaches consistently contradicted by the scientific and medical consensus, it is my conviction that no one is poised to injure or kill more Americans than our current HHS Secretary, who stands in charge of the very departments he is actively destroying.
Some notable early moves that RFK Jr. has made to erode vaccine access and trust:
ACIP PURGE
Kennedy removed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) in June, saying a “clean sweep” was necessary to “reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.” Two days later, he repopulated the committee with all new members, many of whom have expressed anti-vaccine views in the past.
(More on ACIP later in this newsletter.)
MEASLES OUTBREAK
In January, Texas reported a measles outbreak that took root in an undervaccinated Mennonite community in the western part of the state. As of August 18, 2025, there were 762 confirmed cases, with 99 hospitalizations and two deaths.
Julio Cortez / Associated Press
What the HHS Secretary should have said is that vaccination against the measles both safe and the most effective way to avoid contracting the disease, encouraging everyone to ensure that they received the vaccine. But instead, he tepidly noted that vaccines protect individual patients but insisted that “the decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” while recommending aerosolized budesonide, clarithromycin and vitamin A as “very effective” treatments for measles.
(There is no scientific evidence that aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin treatments are beneficial, or that vitamin A can prevent or treat measles.)
CANCELED mRNA RESEARCH FUNDING
Getty Images
In August, Kennedy canceled $500 million in federal research contracts to develop new mRNA vaccines, in order to shift funding toward what he considers “safer, broader vaccine platforms.”
Of note, the technology of mRNA vaccines, which have been administered to hundreds of millions of patients around the world and have been determined to be safe and effective, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2023. Such vaccines are widely regarded as allowing the potential for the creating rapidly deployable vaccines to treat future pandemics and even cancer.
I think it’s also worthwhile to note that Operation Warp Speed, under which the first COVID vaccines were developed, is inarguably one of the crowning achievements of the first Trump administration, and credited with saving millions of lives worldwide.
RESTRICTED ACCESS TO THE COVID VACCINE
Credit: X @SecKennedy
In May, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women.
This, in itself, is inexplicable. Pregnancy itself is a risk factor for developing severe COVID, and increases the risk for preterm birth, eclampsia, and stillbirth. As for pediatric patients, while most children experience milder symptoms, some can get severely ill, and children with underlying health conditions–such as obesity, diabetes, or other chronic illnesses–are at a greater risk of severe illness from COVID-19. (It is worth mentioning here, and discussing in the future, that about 1 in 5 children in the United States are obese.) Children can, of course, also transmit the virus to others.
Joe Raedle / Getty Images
In August, the Food and Drug Administration approved the next round of COVID-19 boosters. Historically, these vaccines had been eligible to anyone 6 months or older who wanted them, but this time the FDA also imposed new restrictions, limiting eligibility to patients 65 and older and those with certain comorbidities.
(A list of conditions increasing the risk of serious COVID infection can be found here, however, it is unclear to me as of this reading which of these may be considered acceptable, as, for instance, pregnancy is on this list yet also explicitly precluded.)
After the FDA approves a vaccine, the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) usually meets to issue its recommendations. This is the usual sequence of events:
- ACIP review: After FDA approval, ACIP evaluates additional information, such as the vaccine’s disease burden, cost-effectiveness, and other public health impacts. The work group dedicated to that vaccine presents its findings to the full committee.
- ACIP vote: At a subsequent, regularly scheduled meeting, ACIP will vote on the specific recommendations for the vaccine’s use, such as who should receive it, at what age, and on what schedule.
- CDC Director approval: If ACIP votes to recommend the vaccine, the recommendations are sent to the CDC Director for final approval.
- Publication: Once approved by the CDC Director, the recommendations are published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) and represent the official CDC recommendations for immunizations in the United States.
A few problems this year.
TIMING
ACIP does not meet until September 18-19. In the meantime, the Georgia Department of Public Health has announced it will be halting distribution of the newest COVID vaccine pending guidance issued at the next ACIP meeting. Therefore, patients looking to get a COVID vaccine now, and providers hoping to administer it, are in limbo.
It is notable also that Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican physician who grudgingly voted to confirm Kennedy, has called for the next ACIP meeting to be postponed “indefinitely.”
Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images
“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting. These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership,” said Dr. Cassidy.
ACIP RECOMMENDATIONS MAY LACK LEGITIMACY
CBS News
In June, Secretary Kennedy made the unprecedented move of firing all 17 members of ACIP, repopulating the committee with 7 new members of his own choosing, several of whom have previously expressed unsubstantiated anti-vaccine viewpoints. Much like Senator Cassidy, I have real concerns whether the recommendations of this new ACIP will be trustworthy, or if indeed they will make recommendations even more restrictive than those of the FDA.
GEORGIA HAS CODIFIED ACIP RECOMMENDATIONS
Georgia is one of a handful of states that have codified ACIP’s recommendations into law. While this was generally a non-issue when ACIP was operating under standard scientific and ethical standards, this tethering of state policy to the committee’s recommendations gives us less leeway to respond outside of them.
What we’ve seen across the country is a Balkanized approach to vaccine policy. While some northeast and western states are forming new vaccine coalitions to provide access to residents who might not qualify under potential future CDC guidelines, Florida has gone in the other direction and announced plans to eliminate vaccine mandates altogether, including as a prerequisite for attending school.
GEORGIA DPH IN “WAIT AND SEE” MODE
For now, the Georgia Department of Public Health announced that it will be halting distribution of the newest version of the COVID vaccine until after ACIP issues its annual recommendations at the end of this week.
Per reporting by the Georgia Recorder, “If the CDC’s panel votes in favor of similar restrictions, Georgia residents who do not fit the eligibility criteria may be required to get a prescription before they can be given a COVID-19 booster shot, and pay for the full cost out of pocket. Georgia’s public health department said the out-of-pocket cost for last year’s vaccine was around $180.”
Javier Zayas Photography / Getty Images
(Click here to read full article)
In practical terms, both the requirement for a prescription and the potential out of pocket cost could put the COVID vaccine targeting this season’s JN.1 variant out of reach for many patients.
We will continue to watch and update you on this issue. Thank you so much to all the people who have reached out to our office, I hope we will have more information by the end of the week. Whether that information will be good or not remains to be seen, but unfortunately I am not optimistic.
APALACHEE: ONE YEAR LATER
On Thursday, September 4th, we commemorated one year since the Apalachee High School shooting, the deadliest school shooting in state history. I hosted a bipartisan remembrance at the Capitol, and it was humbling listening to the voices of students and families, some of whom were at the school when the shooting took place a year ago.
I’m not going to pretend that I’m not disappointed that we couldn’t tell the students we’d done more on the issue of gun safety in the past year, particularly given that this was one of their top concerns. The shooter at Apalachee was only 14 years old at the time of the shooting, and in particular, the issue of safe storage and securing guns away from unsupervised minors seemed like a logical and necessary way to prevent something like this from happening again.
But the work goes on, and so do we. HB 1, the Pediatric Health Safe Storage Act, is still active and ready to be voted out of committee if our Republican colleagues decide they care as much about the issue as the majority of Georgians clearly do.
(Click here to watch full video)
I had the pleasure of talking with Doug Reardon for Atlanta News First’s “On the Record” about the commemoration, and the work that lies ahead.
TEAM AU FALL 2025 TOWN HALL SERIES
There has never been a more important time to engage with the work of your state government. Want to talk to a swing district house representative in the heart of a swing state? Join ours!
Delighted to announce the start of our Fall 2025 Town Hall Series. The first Town Hall will be Thursday, September 30th at Johns Creek City Hall, immediately following the “Sneak Preview” of the Boardwalk Park at the Johns Creek Town Center! Please consider attending to both events, open to all!
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It has never been more important to pay attention to the work of state legislatures. Thank you as ever for your support so that we can keep doing this most important work together.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to our office should you need any assistance, or if you have any concerns you’d like me to address on your behalf.
It is my honor to be your voice in the Georgia House of Representatives.
In service,
