The ability of Arizonans to get good, science-based health care is in danger – you can no longer trust guidance, vaccine recommendations or safety standards from the federal government. The Trump administration and Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have dismantled vital public health initiatives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Mr. Kennedy is anti-science, a vaccine denier and a conspiracy theorist, untrained in public health or any area of science. He holds dangerous beliefs such that pathogens (viruses and bacteria) are not the causes of infectious diseases. His actions endanger the health of all Arizonans. 

Any decisions and recommendations by the CDC under Kennedy cannot be trusted, as they are based on anti-science and anti-vaccine misinformation. The CDC is losing its ability to monitor and report the increasing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, so we do not have a good idea of the extent of the ongoing national measles and whooping cough outbreaks. This will get worse and children will die as Kennedy increases his attacks on vaccines and vaccine hesitancy increases. Furthermore, without the CDC we are unprepared to deal with either outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases or outbreaks of novel, potentially pandemic pathogens. 

However, the problems go beyond vaccine-preventable diseases and novel pathogens. Our safeguards for clean water and food safety are eroding. Hence, water and food-borne diseases will likely increase as inspections decrease and raw dairy products come under less scrutiny. Monitoring for several bacterial diseases caused by raw milk consumption has already been curtailed. Severe outbreaks of Campylobacter, Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria or Brucella could become established before effective public health countermeasures can be applied.

Climate change has allowed more mosquito-borne pathogens from tropical areas to enter the United States – for example, Dengue, Zika, Yellow Fever, Chikungunya, Eastern Equine Encephalitis and West Nile. We are already seeing an increase in West Nile virus cases in Arizona. The CDC or any other federal public health agency is not reliably monitoring the potential invasion of these pathogens. 

On Sept. 15, 2025, we published an opinion piece in the Arizona Capitol Times entitled “Governor Hobbs: Please Don’t Stop at the Covid vaccine.” In this piece we thanked Governor Hobbs for signing an executive order that bypassed Mr. Kennedy’s dangerous restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines. This was a bold move and is much appreciated, but we wrote that more can be done to protect the health of Arizonans. We suggested that the initiatives outlined in the executive order be expanded to take control of the regulation and administration of all vaccines in Arizona. This would preserve the health, lives, and well-being of Arizonans by ensuring that every resident has the right, opportunity, and freedom to receive any vaccination.

We remain steadfast in this position and stress it even more with the recent decisions by the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) to block the birth vaccination for hepatitis B, a 30-year-old strategy that has saved many from chronic liver disease, cancer and death. But now, as the situation grows more dire, we appeal to Governor Hobbs to go even further and consider taking on, at the state level, the science-based public health practices that have been lost due to Kennedy’s destruction of the CDC, FDA and NIH. A way to get started would be for Arizona to join the Governors’ Public Health Alliance, which presently includes 14 states and one territory. At present, the alliance is endeavoring to strengthen emergency preparedness, improve communication, share data and expertise, and ensure states and territories can respond quickly and consistently to emerging health threats. In other words, the alliance is taking up those public health necessities that Kennedy has disabled. This is a science-based and science-driven initiative to counter the corrupted Department of HHS and its spread of misinformation. Governor Hobbs, we strongly encourage you to seriously consider this move to preserve the health and well-being of all Arizonans. 

James Alwine is a virologist, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, a visiting professor at the University of Arizona and a fellow of the American Academy for Microbiology and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Elizabeth Jacobs is an epidemiologist and professor emerita at the University of Arizona and a founding member of Defend Public Health.