The Wall Street Journal has published an editorial from Department of Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., explaining why he has fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory committee. As Steve Benen points out, this constitutes a direct broken promise Kennedy made to Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana during Kennedy’s confirmation process. I’m going to quote extensively from Cassidy’s speech on the Senate floor explaining why he was going to vote to confirm Kennedy.
For context, before entering politics, before ever thinking running for political office, I practiced medicine for 30 years in a public hospital for the uninsured. Caring for those who otherwise would not have been able to afford the access to the care that I provided. After seeing patients die from vaccine preventable diseases, I dedicated much of my time to vaccine research and immunization programs. Personally witnessing the safety monitoring, and the effectiveness of immunization. But simply, vaccines save lives.
Cassidy well understood that Kennedy was the foremost skeptic of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines in the country, and so he wasn’t easy to win over. In the end, Cassidy got a commitment that Kennedy would work with him in close consultation on staffing issues and maintain vaccination programs.
Now, Mr. Kennedy and the administration reached out seeking to reassure me regarding their commitment to protecting the public health benefit of vaccination.
To this end, Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I will have an unprecedently close collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed. We will meet or speak multiple times a month. This collaboration will allow us to work well together and therefore to be more effective.
Mr. Kennedy has asked for my input into hiring decisions at HHS, beyond Senate-confirmed positions.
This was all fine, but Cassidy made a more specific demand (in bold).
He has also committed that he would work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems, and not establish parallel systems. If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes.
Sen. Cassidy delivered this speech of February 4, 2025. It it now barely four months later, and Kennedy has not maintained the advisory committee without changes. He has fired the entire committee. Here’s how Sec. Kennedy describes his decision in the WSJ:
Today, we are taking a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). We are retiring the 17 current members of the committee, some of whom were last-minute appointees of the Biden administration. Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028
It’s up to Sen. Cassidy to decide how to react to this betrayal. But I just want to say that Kennedy’s rationale that this is being done to “restore public trust” in vaccinations, is far too rich for my blood.
Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics, but there is one thing all parties can agree on: The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust. Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning.
Some would try to explain this away by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes. To do so, however, ignores a history of conflicts of interest, persecution of dissidents, a lack of curiosity, and skewed science that has plagued the vaccine regulatory apparatus for decades.
Imagine if Donald Trump said, “Obama’s birth certificate has become a divisive issue in American policies, but there is one thing all parties can agree on: The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust.” Well, if that were ever true, no one would be more responsible for it than the chief purveyor of the fake birth certificate story.
And if Trump then went on to say, “some would try explain this away by blaming misinformation,” we would all nod in agreement without the need to listen any further.
If you are the main culprit in destroying public trust in something that the public actually should trust, then there is only one way to correct the problem, and that is to very publicly and over a sustained period of time, admit what you have done and apologize for misleading people. Trump never did that with Obama’s birth certificate, and Kennedy isn’t doing that now.
Instead, Kennedy is breaking his direct promise to Sen. Cassidy to protect “the public health benefit of vaccination.” He is validating his prior skepticism and pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories about vaccinations by firing the experts who contradicted him.
But it’s worse than that because if the new panel hired by Kennedy does not recommend vaccinations, it will mean that those vaccinations aren’t covered on people’s health insurance. Some people won’t get vaccinations because the government no longer recommends them, while many others will be deterred by the new cost. This will result in needless illness and death, epidemics and perhaps pandemics.
These things will continue until the fascist regime is defeated.
Destroy the parts of the government that prevent billionaires and corporations from running their own fiefdoms. Check.
Destroy the parts of the government that provide the average citizen with relevant information to make good choices. Check.
Everything is going as planned.
I wonder if he might be the first cabinet official to ever be impeached.
Another terrific post, thanks.
One of the great examples of how to “very publicly and over a sustained period of time, admit what you have done and apologize” from Washington politics in recent decades is that of the late Sen. Robert Byrd on racism. A KKK member as a young and ambitious man, Byrd went through all the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, etc.) over a period of many years before finally arriving at “I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again.”
That’s public repentance.
Senator Cassidy is a fool. He is a doctor with years of experience. He had plenty of opportunity to evaluate Kennedy’s stand on vaccines over the years. Also, he was well aware that Kennedy has absolutely no medical training nor certification, nor experience that would make him eligible to head the nation’s health structure. But for Senator Cassidy, all of that was outweighed by his desire to remain a senator – a desire that he deemed more important than the health of 350 million Americans. He did his little charade with Kennedy to salve his conscience. Apparently he has forgotten the oath, “First do no harm.”