Senators pressed President Donald Trump’s nominees to handle major public health programs, asking whether they supported the vaccine skepticism of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as the upper chamber grows increasingly frustrated with the administration’s management of vaccine policies.Dr. Erica Schwartz, the nominee to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Sean Kaufman, the nominee to lead the Administration for Strategic Preparedness, faced pointed questions from both Democrats and Republicans regarding vaccines, which have been deeply politicized since the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, set the tone early that the hearing would revolve around vaccines and Kennedy’s policies that critics say limit vaccine access.
Cassidy, a physician and liver specialist, lost his bid for reelection in May, even after he set aside his concerns regarding Kennedy’s history of anti-vaccine advocacy and voted to confirm him last year.“Any equivocation on these facts, and I shall not be able to support your immunization, your nomination, because when trust is destroyed, it’s hard to be effective,” Cassidy said to both nominees.Schwartz, the former deputy surgeon general during the first Trump administration and a long-term military physician, has a strong record of supporting vaccines, particularly during her time as head of public health in the Coast Guard. But Kaufman, despite his long public health career, has made public statements criticizing COVID-19 vaccines and Hepatitis B vaccines for infants that led members of the committee to question his commitment to vaccines as a public health tool.Schwartz dodges questions on Kennedy pressure
