Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is calling on Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, to hold a hearing on the “dangerous misinformation campaign” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has led in linking vaccines to autism.
“The reality is that since Secretary Kennedy has been in office, he has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that vaccines cause autism — all of which have been repeatedly rejected by scientists,” Sanders, ranking member of the HELP Committee, wrote in a letter to Cassidy.
The Vermont senator appealed to Cassidy’s long-held support for immunizing against vaccine-preventable illnesses, quoting him when he previously said, “Vaccines for measles, polio, hepatitis B and other childhood diseases are safe and effective and will not cause autism.”
Sanders’s letters come one day after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking Kennedy’s reduced childhood immunization schedule released earlier this year. The judge also blocked and nullified the vaccine advisory panel that the secretary fired and remade last year.
The senator noted Kennedy also recently overhauled the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) for the National Institutes of Health, appointing several members who support the unproven vaccine-autism link.
Included among the the new members Kennedy appointed are John Gilmore and Ginger Taylor, who have both publicly backed the claim that vaccines could cause autism.
“The IACC is charged with disseminating fact-based information to the public about autism and developing recommendations for autism research,” wrote Sanders. “Unfortunately, Secretary Kennedy’s newly appointed members have a history of doing the opposite by promoting and providing controversial, untested and dangerous treatments for autism and pushing discredited claims that vaccines cause autism.”
He asked that Cassidy schedule a hearing on this topic “as soon as possible.”
The Hill has reached out to the HELP Committee for comment.
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