Health Affairs July 1, 2024
Abstract
A vaccine law and policy expert reflects on the dangers of the influence of politics on public health decision making.
In 2006, at age twenty-two, I sat with my bald, scarred head in the office of Paul Halverson, who was the Arkansas State Health Officer at the time. We were both appointees of Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). Back then, before taking the national stage and joining Fox News as a commentator, Huckabee, the chairman of the National Governors Association, had launched Healthy Arkansas and Healthy America initiatives to improve public health outcomes in our state and nation, respectively.
Undertaking his responsibility to educate a young, unqualified board member, Halverson handed me a copy of the seminal 1988 Institute of...
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