This week, the CDC announced a revised vaccine schedule for children, recommending fewer vaccines. Vaccines for hepatitis A and B, flu, COVID, among others, have been moved to shared decision-making between parents and doctors. Senator Bill Cassidy says the CDC’s decision is a bad one.
“If we’re going to make America healthy again, you start off by using the safe vaccines that are out there,” Cassidy said.
Vaccines for polio and measles remain on the list of recommended vaccines. Cassidy says, however, that the effects of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s rhetoric are already taking hold.
“What I’m fearing, is that people will sow distrust. And so now children will get vaccinated for pertussis (whooping cough). And I’m told by doctors in Baton Rouge, we’ve had two children die from pertussis who were not vaccinated,” Cassidy said.
Cassidy is a medical doctor by trade whose vote in the Senate Finance Committee was the deciding vote to advance, and ultimately approve, Kennedy’s nomination as health secretary. He says these vaccinations, which have been proven to be safe, can often make the difference between life and death.
“As a doc who cares so deeply about patients, so deeply about my state and my country, I don’t want any child dying from something which is so preventable,” Cassidy said.