By Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) applauded Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for promoting measles vaccination amid a deadly outbreak in Texas.
Since the start of the spread, the U.S. has reported 700 cases of the measles virus in states across the country.
The Louisiana lawmaker said immunizations were safe and would be crucial to saving lives during a Sunday interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM’s “The Cats Roundtable.”
“I want to complement Secretary of Health Bobby Kennedy because he’s now encouraging people to get the measles vaccine. It is the only proven way to avoid getting the measles,” Cassidy said.
In the past, Kennedy has supported anti-vaccine rhetoric and previously shared unproven claims that immunizations could cause autism spectrum disorder in children.
Cassidy addressed the misinformation in conversation with Catsimatidis.
“There is this kind of conversation in our country as to whether or not children should be vaccinated. We now have two children who have died in west Texas from measles, a vaccine-preventable disease,” the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee said.
“It’s been well established that vaccination does not cause autism. That was one of the concerns,” he added.
Some who worked under the HHS Secretary have expressed concerns about Kennedy’s ability to lead amid threats of a public health crisis.
“I don’t know what he’s going to do, and I can’t make him do anything, but I can tell you, as a viewer, please consider getting your child vaccinated,” Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration vaccine official who resigned amid pressure from the Trump administration, said in an interview with CNN.
“If they’re not vaccinated, it’s easy to ignore measles because we haven’t seen it,” he added.
Measles was previously considered eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 due to vaccines.
“It is not just an innocent disease, benign disease. It kills one in 1,000 children in a developed country like the United States,” Marks said, highlighting the severity of a measles infection.
“We’ve already had two deaths in the United States, one in a child from this and these are needless deaths, because the vaccine is 98 percent effective against preventing measles, but close to 100 percent effective in preventing death,” the vaccine expert added.