In a tense hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., admonished the Trump administration for its handling of the nation’s worst measles outbreak in more than three decades, calling it “a terrible legacy for this administration.”
Cassidy made his remarks during the confirmation hearing for nominees Chris Klomp as deputy secretary of health and human services, Nicole Saphier as surgeon general and Timothy Westlake as assistant secretary for mental health and substance use. His remarks come amid a rise in measles cases in the U.S., to their highest level since 1991. There are a total of 3,294 confirmed cases this year so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 2,289 cases last year.
Pennsylvania officials reported Tuesday that four people have died in connection with measles so far this year, the first measles-related deaths the state has recorded in 35 years.
“This is in light of measles being a vaccine-preventable disease,” said Cassidy. “No one should be hospitalized, much less die” of measles.
Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, lost his re-election bid earlier this year in Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary to a Trump-backed candidate. The Senator, a physician who specializes in gastroenterology, cited his own history treating patients sick with vaccine-preventable illnesses and blamed the spread of misinformation for exacerbating the problem.
“Let’s be clear: Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and effective and they do not cause autism. It’s not a matter of opinion. It is a scientific fact,” he said, referring to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s frequent comments making that link despite research finding none. After sharp backlash from lawmakers, the Trump administration edited the CDC website in November to state that “vaccines do not cause autism,” but included an asterisk with that statement and alleged that it is “not an evidence-based claim.”
Cassidy slammed President Donald Trump’s executive order signed last month calling for the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine to eventually be administered as three separate shots. Cassidy argued that the change will increase vaccine hesitancy and put children at risk.
At the time of the executive order, Trump said, without evidence, that the combined vaccine is “lethal” and “can be explosive.”
At Wednesday’s hearing, Cassidy said “it deeply concerns me to see politicians giving medical advice which has zero scientific backing.
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