It is easy to forget that the attack by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On vaccines – including, most recently, the expert committee that leads the American vaccine policy has been avoided. Four months ago, his nomination for health secretary was seriously in danger. The decisive mood seemed to be in the hands of one Republican Senator: Bill Cassidy by Louisiana. A doctor who became known by vaccinating children with a low income in his home state was Cassidy on his care for the long-term vaccine samwering. “I had trouble with your nomination,” he told Kennedy during his confirmation hearings in January.
Then Cassidy allowed.
In the speech he gave on the senate floor in which he explained his decision, Cassidy said he would vote for Kennedy only because he had obtained a number of concessions from the nominee – among those he would keep, “without changes”, the very CDC committee Kennedy who revised this week. Since then, Cassidy Kennedy has continued to give the benefit of the doubt. On Monday, after Kennedy had rejected all 17 members of the Vaccin Advisory Committee, Cassidy posted on X that he worked with Kennedy to prevent the open roles from being filled with “people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion.”
The senator has not failed, unmistakably and spectacular. A new appointed, Robert Malone, has repeatedly distributed wrong information (or what he prefers to call ‘scientific abnormal opinions’) about vaccines. Another appointed, Vicky Pebsworth, is on the board of an anti-vax non-profit, the National Vaccine Information Center. Cassidy can continue to insist that he is doing everything he can to stand up for vaccines. But he already had his good chance of doing this, and he blew it. Now, with the rest of America, he sees the future of the nation vaccine take a dip.
Until now, the senator is not interested in any form of Mea Culpa for his belief in Kennedy’s promises. On Thursday I cassidy when he hurried out of a hearing in the congress. He was still revising the initiated, he told me and several other reporters who gathered around him. When I was after him the course of asking more questions, he told me: “I will make statements and I will leave those statements for themselves.” A member of his staff rejected me with a discount “Thank you, sir.” Cassidy’s staff has repeatedly rejected an interview with the senator since the confirmation vote in January.
With the exception of Mitch McConnell, every Gop -Senator voted to confirm Kennedy. They must all have the actions of the health secretary. But Cassidy seemed to be the Republican most worried about the nomination of Kennedy, and there was a good reason to think that the doctor would vote for his conscience. In 2021, Cassidy was one of the seven senate republicans who voted to condemn Donald Trump for accusation of accusation after the uprising in the Capitol. But this time the Senator-Die fell again next year was confronted with a more Maga-friendly challenger-Volop in line.
Cassidy tried to have both sides in: raise Kennedy to work while he also promised to limit him. When releasing his confirmation voice, Cassidy implied that the two would be in close communication and that Kennedy had asked for his input about making decisions. The two Reportedly Had breakfast in March to discuss the health secretary’s plan to dramatically reform the department. “Senator Cassidy regularly speaks with secretary Kennedy and believes that these conversations are much more productive when they are kept private, not through press colors,” wrote a Cassidy spokesperson in an e -mail. (A HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Sometimes it seemed as if Cassidy’s approach had had some effect on the health secretary. In the middle of the outbreak of measles in Texas earlier this year, Kennedy undoubtedly doubted the safety of the MMR vaccine. In April, after two non -vaccinated children died, Cassidy posted on X: “Everyone must be vaccinated! There is no treatment for measles. No advantage for getting measles. Top health officials should say this unambiguously B/4, another child dies.” Cassidy did not call Kennedy by name, but the health secretary seemed to get the message. Later that day Kennedy placed that the measles vaccine was the most effective way to avert the disease. (“Totally agree”, Cassidy replied.)
All in all, that is a small victory. Despite the claims of Kennedy that he is not an anti-vaxxer, he has established a clear anti-vaccine agenda. Since he has been confirmed, he has pushed the best vaccine regulator of the FDA, a colleague -vaccine -Skepticus hired to to research The alleged link between autism and shots, and undercommon The safety of vaccinations in children currently recommended by the CDC. As my colleague Katherine J. Wu wrote this week: “Whether he will admit it or not, he serves the most core objective of the anti-vaccine movement access to and trust immunization.”
The reality is that back channels can only be so effective. The most important power of Cassidy is to call Kennedy for the Senate Health Commission, which he has chairman, and to demand a statement for the new appointment of Kennedy to the CDC vaccine-advisory committee. Cassidy can do that very well. In February he said that Kennedy “would come for the committee on a quarterly basis, if requested.” Kennedy appeared last month before the Cassidy Committee to answer questions about his efforts to set massage dismissals at his agency. Some Republicans (and many Democrats) pressed the secretary on those efforts, while others praised them. Cassidy, for his part, expressed his concern about Kennedy’s random cutting of research programs, but he was largely respectful. “I agree with secretary Kennedy that HHS needs reform,” Cassidy said.
Even if he did not agree, an angry exchange between a health secretary and a senate committee does not guarantee policy changes. The legislators can try to act as government bureaucrates report to them, but they have limited power as soon as a candidate is already in their work. Technically, the legislators can accuse the members of the cabinet, but in American history a sitting cabinet member has never been deposed and then removed from his office. The long and heavy confirmation process is supposed to be the stronghold against potentially dangerous nominees placed in dominant positions. Cassidy and most of his Republican colleagues have already decided not to prevent Kennedy from supervising the largest department in the federal government by budget. Now Kennedy is free to do what he wants – Sinators are damned.
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