Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) refused to criticize Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sunday as he was pressed about recent changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “vaccine safety” page.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Cassidy, who chairs the Senate’s health committee and is also a physician, skirted around responding to host Jake Tapper, who flat-out said that Kennedy “lied” to the senator to gain his support in taking the helm as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy, a vaccine conspiracy theorist, last week ordered the CDC to change its website language on autism and vaccines to claim that the statement “vaccines do not cause autism” is not evidence-based because it doesn’t rule out the possibility that infant vaccines are linked to the disorder.
Despite Kennedy’s adjustment to the site that defies long-held, widespread scientific consensus on vaccine safety, Cassidy called on Americans to get vaccinated regardless of the update to the CDC website.
“Well, first let me say, what is most important to the American people — speaking as a physician — vaccines are safe,” Cassidy told Tapper. “As it’s been pointed out, it’s actually not disputed; it’s actually quite well proven that vaccines are not associated with autism.”
Not directly naming Kennedy, Cassidy noted that there is a “fringe out there that thinks so, but they’re quite a fringe.”
He added, “President Trump agrees that vaccines are safe, and if you look at the consequences of not taking vaccines ... there’s two children dead in West Texas from not taking a measles vaccine,” he said. “There’s a woman pregnant who lost her child because she was exposed to someone who did not have the measles vaccine.”
Cassidy, who helped secure Kennedy’s bid to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, added: “So discuss this with your doctor. Vaccines are safe. That’s the most important message.”
Tapper went on to point out that Tatiana Schlossberg penned an essay published Saturday by The New Yorker that took shots at her cousin Kennedy while revealing her terminal cancer diagnosis. In the essay, she torched him for his controversial agenda as health secretary and the negative impact it had on the treatment she received.
“RFK Jr., according to his own family, is causing real damage to the health of the United States of America. You don’t seem willing to criticize him by name at all, unlike members of his family,” Tapper told Cassidy.
Cassidy fired back, accusing the journalist of wanting to get him on “record saying something negative.”
“Of course, it makes news if Republicans fight each other,” he added.
Tapper then opposed Cassidy’s comment, noting that he’s unsure if Kennedy even identifies as a Republican. Kennedy previously ran as an independent before abandoning his presidential campaign last year.
“Whatever,” Cassidy responded. “I’m all about, how do we make America healthy?”
Elsewhere in the interview, Cassidy told Tapper, “I know it’s titillating, but I think we need to move beyond the titillation.”
Arguing that “this isn’t about titillation,” Tapper said, “This is about the fact that you are the chairman of the health committee and you voted to confirm somebody that by all accounts ... is actually making America less healthy when it comes to vaccines and studies.”
Kennedy, who was appointed by Trump, has a long history of spreading misleading and false statements about health. The unscientific public health advice from Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, has drawn significant controversy from medical and public health experts.