ASPR Nominee Kaufman's Vote Delayed Over Vaccine Views
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- Sean Kaufman, the Trump administration's nominee for assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR), had his Senate health committee confirmation vote postponed minutes before it was scheduled on Thursday.
- The delay came after STAT reported Kaufman made comments questioning vaccine safety, which drew tough questions from senators during his confirmation hearing last week.
- The Senate health committee lacked sufficient support to advance the nomination, and a successful vote would have sent it to the full Senate floor.
- The committee was set to vote the same morning on Erica Schwartz's nomination to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- The ASPR role is focused on preparing for and responding to public health disasters, placing the nominee at the center of federal pandemic and emergency health policy.
Why it matters: Kaufman's stalled vote leaves the top federal preparedness and response post unfilled at a time when vaccine policy is already under political friction, and pairing his nomination with the CDC director pick on the same ballot shows the committee is treating public-health leadership as a single political test. The rare last-minute pull underscores that even a committee-level hurdle was enough to sink a nominee whose vaccine skepticism had become a public liability.
