Key Senate panel backs Trump’s picks for CDC, pandemic preparedness
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- Senate health committee approved Erica Schwartz as CDC director in a vote along party lines, with all Republicans and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) in favor, and Sean Kaufman as assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR) with all Republicans supporting and all Democrats opposed.
- Cassidy clashed with Kaufman during his confirmation hearing over past social media posts questioning vaccine safety, the hepatitis B shot's safety for infants, and a possible vaccines-autism link, but voted to approve him after HHS officials agreed to unnamed personnel changes and a restriction barring the ASPR leader from vaccine policy decisions.
- Cassidy previously backed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation in February 2025 on promises that have since been broken — including firing a panel of vaccine advisers and handpicking skeptical replacements, delaying the hepatitis B birth dose, and rewriting a CDC website page to raise an unsupported vaccines-autism connection.
- The CDC website as of Thursday still raised unsupported questions about a possible vaccines-autism link; Cassidy called the minimal HHS revisions "almost an insult to the American people" in a recent CNN interview and said more adjustments were coming.
- Kaufman conceded to Cassidy he had said "stupid and irresponsible things" about vaccines and endorsed vaccines during his opening statement; Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general under the first Trump administration, highlighted her role scaling up drive-thru Covid-19 testing.
- Cassidy lost his reelection bid this year after Trump and Kennedy publicly blamed him for blocking their Make America Healthy Again agenda, limiting his leverage on future nominees; his committee still must consider Nicole Saphier for surgeon general and Chris Klomp as Kennedy's potential deputy.
Why it matters: Cassidy's continued willingness to clear Kennedy-aligned nominees despite promises from February 2025 already broken — vaccine adviser firings, pediatric schedule cuts, and an unrevised CDC autism page — delivers the administration two more confirmed public health leaders during active measles outbreaks and other crises, with Cassidy no longer facing voters the only remaining check is HHS commitments that have already failed once.
