Health Expert Urges Senator Cassidy to Intervene Over RFK Jr.’s HHS Actions
WASHINGTON – A longtime network television medical editor and founding editor of the Harvard Medical School Health Letter is imploring Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to fulfill a pledge made prior to confirming Robert F. Kennedy jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The expert is raising alarm over recent decisions made by Kennedy that directly contradict assurances Cassidy gave regarding vaccine access and research.
Prior to KennedyS confirmation,Cassidy stated he would “use [his] authority as chairman of the Senate committee with oversight of HHS to rebuff any attempt to remove the public’s access to life-saving vaccines without iron-clad,causational,scientific evidence.” He also affirmed Kennedy would “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee on immunization practices’ recommendations without changes.”
Though, as Kennedy’s appointment, he has dismissed the longstanding members of the CDC committee advising on vaccines and announced a nearly $500 million cut to goverment funding for mRNA vaccine research and development. Kennedy stated in a social media video last month that HHS had “resolute that mRNA technology poses more risk than benefits for these respiratory viruses,” a claim disputed by numerous vaccine experts.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, a renowned public health expert, called the funding cut “one of the worst decisions I’ve seen in 50 years of public health preparedness work.” Experts also highlight the broader potential of mRNA technology beyond COVID-19 vaccines, including potential applications in cancer treatments.
The health expert, writing directly to Cassidy as “one physician to another,” is pleading with the Senator to “do what you know in your physician’s heart is the right thing to do: use that authority as you promised, and call your committee into action before it is indeed too late, and too many lives might potentially be unnecessarily lost.”
