NACCHO? It sounds like a bad acronym from an Austin Powers movie. But it is actually one of the most powerful anti-vaccine choice front groups in the country, whose primary funder appears to be the CDC.

NACCHO?

It sounds like a bad acronym from an Austin Powers movie.

What/who the heck is NACCHO?

NACCHO is The National Association of County and City Health Officials. If you briefly perused their website, you might be confused into thinking that they were a federal agency of sorts. First off, there’s the name. Many people associate “National Association” with something sort of official. The next thing that might throw you off is the way NACCHO describes themselves:

    NACCHO’s members are the 2700 local health departments across the United States. NACCHO’s vision is health, equity, and security for all people in their communities through public health policies and services. NACCHO’s mission is to be a leader, partner, catalyst, and voice for local health departments in order to ensure the conditions that promote health and equity, combat disease, and improve the quality and length of all lives.

For the uninitiated, reading NACCHO’s self-description might cause you to reach the following conclusions:

  •  NACCHO is a federal organization
  •  Its members are all the local health departments
  •  Somehow, this is a way for all the local health departments to all be connected together, probably there is a rule somewhere that says they should all coordinate themselves on a national basis (and there isn’t, the health of citizens is a state-level job, according to the U.S. Constitution)

As you’re probably getting used to by now with these articles, NACCHO could not be farther from any of that in reality, so let’s look at the details:

1. NACCHO’s “membership” revenue numbers don’t add up at all

Referring to the conclusions one might draw from the above, it appears that NACCHO is a collective of local health departments. According to NACCHO, there are “over 2700” of them and most people would probably presume these local health departments pay a membership fee to be a part of NACCHO, which they do.