In a brutal week for public health, the chairman on the Senate health committee could act. So why doesn’t he?
As Trump hires another ballroom architect for his White House vanity project, a question hangs overhead: Will he ever devote this much attention to governing and policymaking?
I think we know the answer. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-12-05T14:04:30.667Z
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/gops-bill-cassidy-criticizes-kennedys-vaccine-panel-but-the-senator-isnt-prepared-to-act
On Friday morning, things continued their slide from bad to worse. MS NOW reported:
Without data to support their decision and defying warnings from doctors, medical associations and public health groups, a federal advisory panel stocked with loyalists to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has voted to stop recommending a life-saving vaccine to infants at birth.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop recommending the hepatitis B birth dose for infants — specifically those born to mothers who test negative for the virus — until they’re at least 2 months old, following a vote on Friday morning by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Eight panel members voted to stop the recommendation, with three dissenting.
....Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a former physician who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services, has raised related concerns.
The day before the vote, the senator said online, “The ACIP is totally discredited. They are not protecting children.”
A day later, Cassidy published a follow-up online statement:
.....The latter half of the quote, however, wasn’t quite right. Cassidy, in a position of real power and influence on Capitol Hill, has plenty of other options. He could concede publicly that confirming Kennedy was a tragic mistake; he could call for Kennedy’s resignation; he could even schedule hearings and haul officials from HHS, CDC and the FDA to Capitol Hill to demand answers and changes.
Cassidy isn’t doing any of these things. He’s instead publishing a couple of tweets, criticizing radical and dangerous public health moves in the mildest of ways.
I can’t ready the senator’s mind.
Maybe he’s worried about the GOP primary challenge he’s facing in Louisiana next year? Maybe he’s letting partisan considerations hold him back? Maybe he’s under pressure from Republican leaders not to do anything more consequential?
Whatever his motivation,
Cassidy can’t escape responsibility for the damage Kennedy and his cohorts are doing to the nation’s public health, and while he could take meaningful actions in response, the senator is choosing not to, seemingly indifferent to the consequences of his inaction.
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