Political Quotes

“today I am pleased to introduce the Strengthening the Vaccines for Children Program Act of 2021 with Senator Shelley Moore Capito. This bill seeks to protect children and their communities from preventable illness during the pandemic and for the long term by making vaccines more accessible. Similar bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Representatives Kim Schrier, John Joyce, G.K. Butterfield, and David McKinley. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, routine childhood vaccination rates are down, as parents have sought to avoid visits to the doctor and other medical care for their children for fear of catching or spreading COVID-19. These lower immunizations rates raise the very real possibility of a secondary outbreak of an infectious disease such as measles, mumps, or whooping cough. The Vaccines for Children (VFC) program provides federally purchased vaccines to approximately half of all children in the United States, including children who are enrolled in Medicaid or who are uninsured or underinsured, and plays a critical role in ensuring high rates of childhood vaccination. As children return to school in person this fall, the VFC program will be critical to helping children catch up on their routine immunizations to prevent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. However, much more must be done to update and improve the VFC program to better reflect the challenges of administering vaccines today.…”