Senator Bill Cassidy finds himself on the defensive after the CDC changes its website to say that the claim of vaccines not causing autism is not based on evidence. Back in January, Cassidy, who’s a medical doctor by trade, voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health Secretary after Kennedy assured him that he would not push any conspiracies on connections between vaccines and autism. Jake Tapper confronted Cassidy about that on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday, saying that Kennedy lied to him during that confirmation hearing.
“There’s an asterix associated with that change on the website. The asterix reflects a conversation he and I had, but I’ll leave it at that,” Cassidy said.
Despite the CDC’s website now saying that scientific studies have not ruled out the possibility that vaccines contribute to the development of autism, Cassidy says that is not true.
“It’s actually quite well proven that vaccines are not associated with autism. There’s a fringe out there that thinks so, but they’re quite a fringe,” Cassidy explained.
It was Cassidy’s vote in the Senate Finance Committee that was the deciding vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination to the full Senate, paving the way for his confirmation. Tapper asked Cassidy why he would not criticize Kennedy by name, especially after a member of his own family took him to task for slashing vaccine research funding after revealing that she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had one year to live.
“I don’t think the tit for tat is what people are about. I don’t think that inside the Beltway, ‘Oh, he said, she said, he said, he said, he said.’ I think what’s important, Jake, and what we should be focused on right now, is how do we make America healthy,” Cassidy said.
