When U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy backed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the respected Baton Rouge physician and longtime vaccine advocate admitted that the decision had been difficult.
Kennedy is well known for advocating policies that fall well outside mainstream medical thinking, particularly when it comes to vaccination.
But Cassidy said at the time he would consult regularly with Kennedy, and use his oversight authority as chair of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to “rebuff any attempts to remove the public’s access to lifesaving vaccines without ironclad, causational scientific evidence that can be defended before the mainstream scientific community and before Congress.” The senator also vowed to “carefully watch for any effort to wrongfully sow public fear about vaccines...”
With Kennedy’s recent revocation of almost $500 million in development contracts for new vaccines using mRNA technology, we call on Cassidy to do just that.
Cassidy has already taken the first step of publicly opposing Kennedy’s move, which affects 22 projects aimed at preparing for national health emergencies. These vaccines can be developed and adjusted rapidly; they were widely employed during the COVID pandemic, and scientists believe they have great potential to address a wide range of deadly diseases.
“It is unfortunate that the Secretary just canceled a half a billion worth of work, wasting the money which is already invested,” Cassidy wrote on X. “He has also conceded to China an important technology needed to combat cancer and infectious disease. President Trump wants to Make America Healthy Again and Make America Great Again. This works against both of President Trump’s goals.”
He's hardly alone in his criticism. Prominent researchers around the country are sounding alarms, as are several leading officials from President Donald Trump’s first administration.
“We know that by the most conservative estimates over 2 million lives have been saved because of mRNA technology. It helped us develop COVID vaccines in record time. It's quite frankly President Trump’s greatest achievement,” said Trump’s first surgeon general Jerome Adams, in an interview that Cassidy shared on social media.
We admit we were disappointed that Cassidy chose to cast his pivotal nomination vote on Kennedy’s behalf, even as we were glad to hear of his plan to be an active partner in crafting our country's health care agenda.
So while we applaud Cassidy for speaking out on the mRNA decision, we hope he won't stop there. We urge him to call Kennedy before his committee, ask hard questions, hear from experts and do everything in his official power to reverse or minimize effects of a policy that will harm the nation’s readiness for the next pandemic, and also needlessly undermine confidence in other promising uses for this important technology, including in the fight against cancer.
We know this is not a stance Cassidy is eager to take as he approaches next year’s election, but we believe lives depend on it.
Based on his own words, we suspect that Cassidy does too.