Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday signed legislation that formally establishes a process for state-level vaccine guidelines and expands pharmacy access to COVID-19 and other shots for young children across Illinois.

“While RFK Jr. and his QAnon-inspired colleagues, spreading conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation about vaccines, are running around Washington, Illinois is stepping up to protect the health of our people,” Pritzker said at a news conference downtown, referring to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The new state law follows months of changing federal vaccine policies and growing backlash from blue states, which say current federal guidelines are less supportive of vaccination than previous presidential administrations.

Illinois health leaders had already recommended the state part ways with the federal government on the COVID-19 vaccines, recommending the shots for all adults and many children following an executive order from the governor in September. Pritzker’s order called for the state to develop its own guidelines on vaccines “where federal actions fail to protect the public health.” The Illinois Department of Public Health quickly adopted those recommendations.

The law signed Tuesday codifies the state’s vaccine recommendation, adoption and publishing process into law. And it allows the state’s Immunization Advisory Committee to vote to override recommendations from the director of the state’s Department of Public Health if committee members feel that the director didn’t “adequately” consider their recommendations before issuing state guidelines.

It also reduces the minimum age at which children can receive COVID-19 and flu shots at pharmacies from 7 to 3 years old, Pritzker said.

The dueling recommendations from the state and federal governments this year represent a shift from previous years, when Illinois and other states aligned with the federal vaccine guidelines.

This year, Kennedy fired and replaced all members of the federal vaccine advisory committee before they voted on recommendations. He also announced changes to vaccine recommendations even before the committee vote, including that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.

Legislation that Pritzker signed Tuesday also included “clean-up language” related to legislation signed into law earlier this year regulating pharmacy benefit managers, which are companies that act as intermediaries among drugmakers, insurance corporations and pharmacies, state Rep. Bob Morgan, 58th District, has said.

America’s Health Insurance Plans, an insurance industry group that opposed the bill, said it is against any attempt to regulate self-funded plans — which are a type of health insurance typically offered by large employers and regulated by the federal government — beyond the limits established under federal law.

The insurance group said in September that its member health plans would continue to cover all the vaccines that they covered as of Sept. 1 through the end of 2026.

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(The Tribune’s Lisa Schencker contributed.)

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