Murray, former committee member, raise concerns over vaccine advisory board firings
The decision to replace all 17 members of the federal vaccine advisory committee does not sit well with Washington U.S. Senator Patty Murray.
Murray told reporters Thursday she considers the move “a dangerous step” to undermine public health and confidence in vaccines.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has named replacements for eight of the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Murray says most are vaccine skeptics who promote health-related conspiracy theories.
Dr. Helen Chu, who was a member of the vaccine committee until she was fired this week, said she’ll reserve judgment for now.
"I don’t know enough about them to really comment on what their decision making will be," she said during a press conference yesterday. "I can tell you that the members in the past have been people who have worked extensively in the vaccine space, who have been devoting their lives to vaccine policy."
Chu, an infectious disease professor at the University of Washington, said the vaccine review process has worked for the last 60 years, building public support for immunization.
"I hope that the new members will do the same, will take this very seriously and will make sure that the decisions they make are for the good of the American public," she said.
Chu worries the U.S. will lose its position as a trusted international health partner.
“If we have a system that has been dismantled, one that allowed for open, evidence-based decision making and that supported transparent and clear dialogue about vaccines, and then we replaced it with a process that’s driven largely by one person’s beliefs, that creates a system that cannot be trusted," Chu said. "In the absence of an independent, unbiased ACIP, we can’t trust that safe and effective vaccines will be available for use in the United States."
The immunization review committee was established by the U-S Surgeon General in 1964.
Ferguson keeps an eye on immigration protests, advises local officials
Governor Bob Ferguson has canceled his weekend plans and is closely following the situation in Los Angeles ahead of more protests expected across Washington on Saturday.
Ferguson stressed his support for the fundamental right to protest but had a message for Washingtonians:
"The main thing I'll want to say to folks who engage in that constitutional right is obviously do that in a peaceful way," he said during a press conference Thursday. "Anything that is not peaceful, anything that violates the law or is violent, only does one thing, it plays into Donald Trump's hands."
Ferguson called the deployment of the National Guard to L.A. an unlawful escalation by President Trump.
The Governor said he's in touch with Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown after the city declared a curfew on Wednesday night and is making sure officials across the state are prepared to respond to any unlawful conduct.
WA law meant to protect vulnerable young adults helped cause Spokane protest
A unique Washington law is partially responsible for sparking one of the protests in downtown Spokane Wednesday.
The Vulnerable Youth Guardianship program is the reason that Ben Stuckart first met and befriended Cesar Perez, the 21-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker whose detainment by ICE Wednesday led Stuckart to call an impromptu protest.
The state program allows legal US residents to become guardians of any at-risk youth who is 18, 19 or 20 years old.
"Just mentorship, friendship. He doesn’t live with us, and I don’t control his finances or anything. It’s a really unique law," Stuckart said while he waited outside the bus that was supposed to take Perez to the ICE detention center in Tacoma.
"I figured if I was his legal guardian, that ICE would let me in to the meeting with him and maybe I could convince them," he told SPR News. "But they wouldn’t even let me past the front door."
The state program is separate from a “Special Immigrant Juvenile Status,” a federal status that gives vulnerable or abused immigrant youth up to 21 years old certain protections.
On June 6, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services department eliminated some of the protections for that group.
Regardless, Perez aged out of his legal relationship with Stuckart yesterday. Stuckart says ICE detained Perez on his 21st birthday.
WA Senators decry treatment of CA colleague
Washington U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell Thursday spoke in support of California U.S. Senator Alex Padilla.
Video shows him being tossed to the ground and placed in handcuffs for interrupting a press conference held by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
Padilla later told the Associated Press that he wanted answers to what he says are the Trump administration's "increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions."
In a speech on the Senate floor, Murray said democracy requires members of Congress to speak up and ask questions.
"What happens when that voice is stifled? What happens when that voice is thrown to the floor and handcuffed?" she said. "Our democracy is lost."
Cantwell called what happened to Senator Padilla disrespectful and says Republican colleagues need to do the same.
"Are we trying to freeze the voice of dissent?" she said. "Are we trying to say that we cannot understand what true public policy discourse is about?"
The New York Times reports that after the incident Padilla was released and later had a conversation with Noem.
Trump pulls federal government out of Columbia River fish restoration deal
The “historic” deal between northwest states, tribes, and the U-S government is now over.
By signing an order yesterday, President Donald Trump withdrew the federal government from the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement.
It was meant to restore endangered salmon populations being hurt by hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River.
The order calls the commitments in the agreement “onerous,” “misguided” and characterizes them as placing “concerns about climate change above the nation’s interests in reliable energy resources.”
Some farmers, utility groups and others who rely on Columbia River dams to move goods celebrated the move.
But in a statement, Washington U-S Senator Patty Murray called the decision to pull out of the agreement “senseless,” “shortsighted,” and a “betrayal” of tribes.
The chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe, one of the signatories to the agreement, told the Oregon Capital Chronicle in a statement that the decision tries to hide from the truth that salmon populations are disappearing.
AGs sue over attempt to shut down EV programs
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and 10 other state attorneys, including Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, have filed suit to keep their states’ electric vehicle programs from being shut down by the Trump administration.
Washington, Oregon, and other states are phasing out gasoline-powered vehicles, by adopting California pollution laws.
Under the Clean Air Act, California can adopt stricter pollution rules than the nation as a whole. Thursday, Trump signed Congressional resolutions overturning California's policy.
Those would torpedo more than a dozen other states’ electric-vehicle rules as well.
The electric-vehicle mandates are central to those state’s efforts to fight climate change and air pollution. Trump called those policies “a disaster.”
Commerce Dept. awards small business grants to Okanogan County
Okanogan County is getting $250,000 in grant money from the Washington State Department of Commerce to support small businesses.
Jon Galow, who runs the Community Block Grant Program at Commerce, said the money will help entrepreneurs and give them access to workshops and on-site technical assistance.
"We look to provide funding in those areas that either can’t easily access other funding, they have a funding gap, and in this case, Okanogan County and Economic Alliance identified this as a priority," he told SPR News. "And we’re happy to be able to support that need."
The Department awarded two other grants: The city of Ellensburg will receive money to replace HVAC systems at its public library, and Wapato will get help for road improvements.
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Reporting by Doug Nadvornick, John O'Brien, Eliza Billingham, Freddy Monares, Owen Henderson and Monica Carrillo-Casas .