Sen. Bill Cassidy lambasted the Trump administration for stoking vaccine doubts among Americans, after reports Tuesday that two unvaccinated Pennsylvanians had died of measles.
“It is irresponsible, it damages our country, and we have four people in Pennsylvania reportedly dead because of that sort of activity,” the Louisiana Republican said at a Wednesday Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to confirm President Donald Trump’s surgeon general pick, Nicole Saphier.
It was Cassidy’s latest opportunity to air his grievances against Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for undermining confidence in childhood vaccines as measles cases grow to their highest levels in decades.
The deaths — and initially conflicting reports over whether all were caused by measles — have fueled public sparring between Kennedy and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, further fueled by recent news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isn’t adding the deaths to its measles database.
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“It is … deeply concerning to learn that the Secretary personally intervened in an otherwise administrative process to direct the CDC to not report these Pennsylvania deaths, presumably because it doesn’t fit his phony narrative,” Shapiro, a Democrat, wrote Tuesday on X.
Cassidy expressed frustration Wednesday at Saphier’s responses when he drilled her on whether vaccines cause autism, an idea contradicted by decades of research but which Trump aired at an Oval Office event last month.
“I don’t know what causes autism … but I have not seen evidence that vaccines cause autism,” Saphier responded.
“There is a little bit of wiggle room there,” Cassidy cut in. “I am so sensitive to this.”
The lone Republican willing to sharply criticize the administration’s approach to vaccination, Cassidy, who chairs the HELP committee, will leave Congress at the end of the year after losing his primary to a Trump-backed candidate.
Trump’s health nominees have had to answer for the administration’s efforts to roll back childhood vaccine recommendations and for claims by Trump and Kennedy that some vaccines should be viewed with suspicion.
Trump called the combination measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine — given to millions of children every year — “quite lethal” last month as he signed an executive order instructing the Department of Health and Human Services to reduce the childhood vaccine schedule.
“I can tell you that I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal,” Saphier told Cassidy.
“I appreciate the president is trying to reach the vaccine-hesitant people who are wanting more answers or who are concerned that there are too many doses,” she added.
Cassidy shot back: “I’m not sure the way to reach people with vaccine hesitancy is by feeding into untruths.”
The senator has expressed support for Saphier, who is Trump’s second surgeon general pick after his first one failed to gain enough GOP support, but he hasn’t said whether he’ll vote to confirm her.
Wednesday’s hearing didn’t include Heidi Overton, Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration. Overton, who advises the White House on domestic policy, stood next to Trump in the Oval Office as he signed the executive order on the vaccine schedule.
A committee spokesman said the panel received Overton’s paperwork Tuesday and is working with the administration to schedule her confirmation hearing.
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