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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, was asked by Fox News on Sunday whether he regrets that choice.
“I’m often asked that, but I’d rather not make this personal like what are my feelings,” Cassidy, who is also a physician, responded, stammering slightly, after “Fox News Sunday” anchor Jacqui Heinrich brought up the CDC’s recent decision to alter the childhood vaccine schedule under Kennedy’s orders. “It should be about the health of the patient.”
Cassidy decried that the vaccine schedule change did not undergo the required “scientific review committee” or “go through the advisory committee for immunization practices,” adding that the move “totally bypassed the normal mechanism.”
Earlier this month, Kennedy sparked widespread confusion after announcing that the United States would immediately reduce the number of vaccines it recommends for every child.
The change removed requirements for vaccine protection against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and some forms of meningitis or RSV, and now only recommends protections against those diseases for certain groups considered high-risk.
The change came after President Donald Trump in early December released a memorandum instructing Kennedy and the acting director of the CDC to consider aligning the U.S. with best practices on childhood vaccine recommendations from peer nations. The memorandum pointed to Denmark, Japan and Germany as specific examples.
With flu rates on the rise, the new vaccine schedule has faced backlash from the American Public Health Organization and health experts.
Getty Images/YouTube.
Elsewhere in the interview, Cassidy slammed the Trump administration for trying to align America’s vaccine schedule with Denmark’s.
“Anyone that thinks that our country is like Denmark when it comes to the need for vaccines has never actually lived with American people beyond those who are wealthy and well-to-do,” he declared. “And I say that as a doctor who spent 18 years of my life, or 20 years of my life, in a hospital for the poorly insured and the uninsured. That’s not our country.”
The physician senator argued that if “you meet our country where they are [and] not imagine that we’re like Denmark, you will find that you actually have to have this sort of vaccine schedule.”
After Heinrich asked if the senator is “going to do anything to change” the new vaccine recommendations, Cassidy noted that “the current law is that the health HHS secretary has the right to do this.”
Speaking about several cases in which children died across the country due to vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, he added, “let’s just take care of people and move beyond your ideology.“
Meanwhile, Kennedy declared in a statement Monday that “this decision [to drop the number of vaccine recommendations] protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.”
Cassidy also slammed Kennedy’s vaccine schedule change in a Jan. 5 X post, stressing that the alteration will “make America sicker.”
“The vaccine schedule IS NOT A MANDATE. It’s a recommendation giving parents the power,” he wrote.
Cassidy added: “Changing the pediatric vaccine schedule based on no scientific input on safety risks and little transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients and doctors, and will make America sicker.”
Watch Cassidy’s appearance on “Fox News Sunday” below.
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