Help Stop Devastating Cuts to Immunization Infrastructure
Jul 20, 2017

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The House is moving forward on budget proposals for Fiscal Year 2018 (FY18) and has suggested a $50 million cut to immunization funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This could mean serious reductions in our country’s and states’ abilities to:

  • Support the science that informs our national immunization policy;
  • Provide a safety net to uninsured, low-income adults by enabling vaccine purchases;
  • Monitor the safety of vaccines;
  • Educate healthcare providers;
  • Perform community outreach; and
  • Conduct surveillance, laboratory testing and epidemiology in response to disease outbreaks.
With the U.S. currently facing costly outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and pertussis (also known as whooping cough), now is not the time to weaken the backbone of our nation’s public health infrastructure.
We are not asking for a funding increase, we are simply asking that Congress not reduce current levels of immunization funding.
States have already had to make tough decisions because of a $4 million cut in funds in the 2017 budget.

Please call your Representative today and tell him or her:

“Please reject the proposed $50 million cut to the CDC Immunization Program and maintain level funding for FY18. A funding reduction would have serious consequences for communities across the country at a time when outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles are on the rise.”

SOTI-Report_Cover.pngYou can also reference Every Child By Two’s State of the ImmUnion report to examine how strong our defenses truly are against vaccine-preventable diseases and what we can do, as public health advocates and legislators, to make our ImmUnion stronger and more resilient in the face of emerging health threats. You may even want to share this report with your Representative since it highlights the successes of vaccines, the economic and societal savings incurred from vaccines, challenges facing the public health system and key areas that we need to focus on to achieve optimal protection against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Please use Who Is My Representative? to quickly find your Member of Congress in the House.

Thank you for your continued support of immunizations and their critical role in protecting our health!


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