Senator Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the US Senate health committee, has blamed the Trump administration’s vaccine-skeptical stance for recent measles deaths in Pennsylvania. On Wednesday, he also pressed Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general to clearly affirm that vaccines do not cause autism.
Cassidy, a Louisiana physician who leads the committee, said three people in Pennsylvania had died from measles and that a fourth death was being investigated. He attributed the deaths to misinformation and misguided policies as the United States faces its worst measles outbreak in more than 30 years.
“To suffer from any disease is awful, but to suffer one which is avoidable, that’s even worse,” Cassidy said. The country, he added, needs public health leaders “who make decisions based on science, not politics or ideology”.
Cassidy warned that the outbreak could become “a terrible legacy for this administration”.
The committee is considering Trump’s nominees Chris Klomp for deputy secretary of health and human services, Nicole Saphier for surgeon general and Timothy Westlake to head the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Saphier did not directly mention vaccines in her opening statement. Instead, she emphasized her support for the administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
“I have long believed that we spend too much time and resources treating chronic disease after it takes hold, and not enough time helping Americans reduce their risk before illness begins. And unfortunately, we’re seeing the consequences of that imbalance right now: rising cancer rates in people under 50, cardiovascular disease that remains the number one killer, but also is largely preventable in lots of cases,” Saphier said.
Cassidy then asked Saphier whether she would reassure parents that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine does not cause autism.
“I’m so sensitive to this because I’ve had wriggle room from people sitting there … who later use that wriggle room to do things which are quite contrary?” Cassidy said. He was referring to promises made by Robert F Kennedy Jr during his confirmation hearing to the senior Republican, several of which the health secretary later abandoned.
“Would you feel comfortable communicating with clarity … Is the MMR vaccine extremely lethal, as the president said?” Cassidy asked Saphier.
Saphier, the nominee for surgeon general, said she “cannot speak to what the president has said”. She added: “I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal. I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles.”
Saphier, a practising radiologist and Fox News contributor, continued: “The best tool we have to combat these infections to save the most lives and to also create population herd immunity is vaccination against the MMR. I appreciate the president is trying to reach vaccine-hesitant people who are wanting more answers or who are concerned that there are too many doses.”
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Cassidy, however, remained unconvinced by the president’s public health strategy. “I’m not sure that you reach people who are vaccine hesitant by feeding into untruths,” the chair said.
Last month, the senator denounced Trump’s “crazy, stupid” claims about the safety of the combined MMR vaccine for undermining faith in immunization.
Cassidy previously voted to confirm Kennedy as health secretary, despite disagreements over how to combat vaccine skepticism.
The senator said that Kennedy, who has pushed the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism for decades, had promised him that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism”.
After Kennedy became health secretary, however, the Autism and Vaccines page on the CDC website was altered to undermine that scientific consensus. An asterisk was added to the headline “Vaccines do not cause Autism”, which leads to a footnote pointing out that “the root causes of autism” remain unknown.
