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NY lawmakers introduce legislation to ensure vaccine access amid federal turmoil
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Sep 23, 2025
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By
Caroline Lewis
Published Sep 23, 2025
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New York Democrats are pushing state legislative fixes to ensure continued access to vaccines as public health experts raise concerns about a shift away from scientific rigor in federal immunization guidelines.
Assembly Health Committee Chair Amy Paulin has introduced a bill that would allow pharmacies and clinicians to administer shots based on state and regional recommendations, in addition to federal guidance — and require insurers to cover vaccines based on those recommendations.
“We just have to be sure that everyone has access [to vaccines] and everyone has coverage and that doctors and nurse practitioners and all other prescribers have an ability to keep everyone safe from harm,” Paulin said.
State Sen. Michelle Hinchey also introduced a version of the bill in her chamber.
The proposed legislation would allow New York doctors and pharmacists to order and administer shots based on recommendations from two existing state groups — the Immunization Advisory Council and the 21st Century Workgroup for Disease Elimination and Reduction — in addition to the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP.
It would also allow them to administer vaccines based on guidance from an “interstate body” such as the newly established Northeast Public Health Collaborative.
The legislation would also amend state insurance law to require health plans to cover all vaccines recommended by these groups, rather than only requiring them to cover shots recommended by ACIP.
Other bills pending in the state Legislature also aim to address the uncertainty around federal vaccine guidance. Legislation introduced by Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Micah Lasher this past spring would allow pharmacists to administer shots as long as they were recommended by the state health commissioner.
Lawmakers won’t be able to pass any legislation around vaccine guidelines until they return to Albany in January.
New York law has long deferred to ACIP on vaccine standards. But the committee was recently overhauled by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and now counts vaccine critics among its members.
At public meetings on Thursday and Friday, the committee voted to restrict access to a combined measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccine and to require all patients to have conversations with clinicians about the risks and benefits of COVID-19 vaccination before getting a shot. The committee narrowly voted against requiring a prescription for COVID shots.
The committee did not recommend restricting vaccine access as much as some observers expected. But the meetings, nonetheless, raised concerns among public health experts, including former CDC officials, that federal vaccine recommendations are now being driven by ideology rather than science.
“We saw science sidelined, conspiracy theorists elevating unproven and often discredited science onto the previously credible ACIP platform and resolutions that had not gone through the standard scientific rigor,” Demetre Daskalakis, who recently resigned from his position as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on a press call Monday.
Daskalakis joined the CDC after serving in the New York City health department.
David Jakubowicz, president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, said he supported state legislation that prioritized state or regional guidance until faith in federal recommendations could be restored.
“Given the upheaval that's going on, given the way that things have been handled, unfortunately it's caused a fair amount of distrust,” Jakubowicz said.
He said his top concern was making sure vaccines remained available and covered by insurance.
Gov. Kathy Hochul took steps this month to try to alleviate confusion in the medical community and ensure widespread access to the latest COVID shots after the ACIP guidance was delayed and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration only recommended the shots for those over 65 or with certain health conditions.
But the executive order Hochul issued on Sept. 5 allowing pharmacies to broadly administer COVID shots still needs to be renewed on a monthly basis and doesn’t address other types of vaccines that could be restricted in the future or create an insurance mandate.
Hochul previously said she anticipated renewing the Sept. 5 executive order until the Legislature could take action. She did not comment Monday on specific legislative proposals.
Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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