CDC Director Nominee Pressed on Vaccines at Senate Hearing

Nominees for the positions of CDC director and assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR) faced tricky questions and some frustration Wednesday from senators on both sides of the aisle.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, asked ASPR nominee Sean Kaufman about his suggestion in a now-deleted LinkedIn post that countries who gave infants a hepatitis B vaccine at birth had the highest rates of hepatitis B.

“Of course, that was misleading,” said Cassidy, who is a hepatologist. “It was the people who were not vaccinated that had the burden of disease. So your LinkedIn post was either uninformed or deliberately misleading.” He slammed his fist on the dais. “Why would you repeat those damn lies? That destroys trust, and we don’t start getting back to where we trust unless people speak the truth.”

Erica Schwartz, MD, MPH, the CDC director nominee, also came in for some of Cassidy’s wrath. “I felt you were always trying not to answer my questions, which was disappointing,” he said to Schwartz at the end of the hearing. “I’m here personally liking you but feeling I have to represent the public health of the U.S.A.”

Cassidy laid out his expectations for the hearing right from the beginning. “A lot of this hearing is going to be around vaccines,” he said in his opening statement. “So let me be clear; vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and effective. They have saved countless lives, and study after study shows they do not cause autism … Any equivocation on these facts and I shall not be able to support your nomination, because when trust is destroyed it’s hard to be effective.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the committee’s ranking member, picked up on the autism thread. “According to the American Medical Association, an abundance of evidence from decades of scientific studies shows no link between vaccines and autism,” he said. “And yet today, the CDC has published false information on its website suggesting that childhood vaccines cause autism. Dr. Schwartz, do you agree that the existing scientific evidence shows vaccines do not cause autism? If confirmed, will you commit to removing information on the CDC website suggesting a link between vaccines and autism?”

Schwartz did not answer directly. “We do not know what causes autism,” she said. “One in 33 children have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, and we owe it to the American people to figure out why.”

In response to further questioning, Schwartz said that she did accept the evidence showing that vaccines don’t cause autism, but she would not commit to taking down the CDC webpages that suggest otherwise, instead saying she would “look at that exact website [and] speak with the secretary to understand why the secretary has put that stuff up there.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) spoke out against any government involvement in vaccine criticism or promotion. “I would hope the federal government would stay out of the damn vaccine business,” he said. “I’ve got young grandkids [and] they want them to take 70 vaccines before they’re 2 years old. That is bullcrap. Let the parents decide that decision. That doesn’t need to belong in the federal government.”

Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) noted that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video “where he said, and I quote, ‘The notion that a flu vaccine must be mandatory for every service member, everywhere, in every circumstance, at all, is just overly broad and not rational.'” Alsobrooks asked Schwartz whether she agreed with that idea.

“I spent over 25 years in the uniformed services, and I … followed leadership as they made the mandate of the vaccines, and I understood why,” said Schwartz. “When you’re in congregate living situations, when you’re in submarines, when you’re on ships, close quarters, it is really important to make sure that you have what we call core self-protection. So I’m fully supportive of, in certain circumstances, mandating vaccines for military members, with the exception of religious exemptions.”

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) asked Schwartz whether she thought that the CDC has “any missions that you think are inappropriate or should be performed by another agency.”

“I am a biologist,” Schwartz said. “I focus on the original mission of the CDC back in 1946, focusing on protecting Americans from malaria. I do think that the CDC should have an infectious disease prevention focus. I think over time, the CDC has had some mission creep, and it’s trying to be all things to all people. And in a resource-constrained environment, with nearly $40 trillion in debt, we need to refocus and figure out what should the CDC be.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked Schwartz about the abortion data the CDC collects as part of its abortion reporting system, noting that data submission is voluntary and that some states “not coincidentally, large blue states,” are not submitting data, making it difficult to get an accurate picture. “Would you commit to trying to get as much information, to collect the data, on the number and circumstances of abortions as is provided for in the system … and work with those states that are currently holding out and not giving it, to actually get the data, so that we can get a picture of what really is going on here?”

“Senator, you have my commitment,” she said. “Abortion surveillance is absolutely a critical component of what the CDC is currently doing … I also want to make sure that certain states are not conflating emergency services and hiding abortions in the emergency services case definition. We need to make sure we’re pulling out true abortions and making sure that we’re really having clear case definitions regarding abortions, so the data is actually accurate.”