DENVER — The Colorado Senate this week approved a bill that would expand the list of who can authorize and prescribe vaccines and, in the words of the sponsor, sidestep “the dysfunction coming out of Washington, D.C.”

Senate Bill 32 would allow pharmacists to prescribe vaccines independently. It would also authorize the state Board of Health and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to use immunization guidance from medical professional organizations other than a federal advisory committee that been the focus of controversy.

The measure builds on recent changes to state law that incorporate the American Academy of Pediatrics vaccine schedule into state immunization requirements. A law passed last year also requires state-regulated insurance plans to continue covering recommended vaccines, regardless of federal changes that followed its passage.

The bill that cleared the Senate on Thursday does not create new vaccine requirements or change rules around exemptions.

Sen. Kyle Mullica, a Thornton Democrat and emergency room nurse leading the bill, said the measure was explicitly in response to shifting federal policy on vaccines. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been hostile to the broad medical consensus that vaccines are safe and effective.

Shortly after becoming health secretary in President Donald Trump’s administration, Kennedy fired the 17-member independent vaccine advisory committee. He has since replaced the committee with members who’ve doubted the safety of vaccines.

Last month, federal health officials under Kennedy also scaled back the number of vaccines recommended for children.

“Science matters,” Mullica said. “Polio didn’t just disappear. Smallpox did not just disappear. But right now, in Washington, D.C., we have an HHS secretary who does not believe in that science … This bill is about insulating our state from that dysfunction.”

He highlighted the recent measles outbreak that’s centered in South Carolina as one cost of conflicting federal messaging about vaccine safety. In Colorado, there were 35 confirmed cases of measles last year. In most years, the state records two or fewer cases

Mullica sought to cast the measure as apolitical and science-based, even as he assailed Kennedy. In addition to the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the bill would allow state agencies to rely on recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American College of Physicians.

Senate Republicans voted unanimously against the bill, which passed 20-12.

In speaking against the bill, several members emphasized that they didn’t doubt the effectiveness of vaccines. But they said they wanted the option for people harmed by vaccines to sue vaccine manufacturers or administrators. The bill expands those protections.

“These conversations about public trust are incredibly important, and conversations that we need to be having in this chamber,” said Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican.

The bill now goes to the House for consideration.

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