How AP tracked and analyzed anti-science legislation in US statehouses

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To track and analyze the spread of anti-science legislation, The Associated Press examined more than 1,000 bills that had been introduced in states across the nation. Reporters identified the bills using the bill-tracking software Plural and a database maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

AP focused on bills related to vaccines, fluoride and raw, unpasteurized milk, and analyzed each bill for whether it undermined science-based protections for human health. Reporters also examined national advocacy groups connected to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., capturing bills they supported or opposed and any reasoning they provided for doing so.

Only bills that had legislative action in 2025 were included. AP did not include overarching budget bills or broad bills on insurance coverage. While most of the bills AP found sought to change the law directly, AP also included resolutions, study bills and proposed constitutional amendments that would put the question to voters.

When a bill included anti-science language that was later changed, AP included it in its count of anti-science bills that had been introduced. If the anti-science language was removed before it passed, the AP did not include it in its count of adopted bills.

Among the bills AP classified as anti-vaccine were those that attempt to:

— Make it easier to get a vaccine exemption

— Place additional regulatory burdens, restrictions or red tape around vaccination, vaccine programs, entities that require vaccines or health services such as blood banks

— Make it harder to get a vaccine or keep vaccination rates high enough to protect against disease in the community

— Ban certain types of vaccines

— Increase liability related to vaccines

— Erode or prohibit vaccine requirements and mandates

— Give unvaccinated people protection against discrimination or special rights

— Undermine vaccines or vaccine infrastructure

Among other bills AP classified as anti-science were those that attempt to:

— Make raw milk easier to buy, sell and consume

— Ban fluoride in drinking water, loosen requirements to fluoridate, place additional regulatory burdens or red tape on fluoridation, or make it harder to get fluoride

— Put decisions on fluoridation in the hands of voters rather than public officials

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.