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Ongoing1 earlier update

This story has run 2 times over 6 days, starting Aug 11.

  1. Trump orders the childhood MMR shot split into three injections at three separate visits
  2. Cassidy says Kennedy lied about leaving the childhood vaccine schedule alone, and that Trump's order will raise families' costs — this issue

Cassidy says Kennedy lied about leaving the childhood vaccine schedule alone, and that Trump's order will raise families' costs

Political Guyentist · August 17, 20262 min read

THE HILL

The Louisiana Republican who cleared Kennedy's path to the Cabinet now says it is 'pretty evident' the promise that won his vote was false.

Bill Cassidy (Sen-R Louisiana), a gastroenterologist who chairs the Senate health committee, said in a Sunday, Aug. 16 interview that Donald Trump's executive order rewriting the childhood immunization schedule would mean more appointments and more separate injections for the same protection. "Now instead of your child getting two shots," he said, walking through a schedule broken into additional visits, each of which a family and its insurer get billed for. Cassidy also said it was "pretty evident" that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had broken the pledge he made to the committee before his confirmation not to touch that schedule. Kennedy has said the order is about giving parents choices between combination shots and single ones; Cassidy's answer was that the choice is priced, and that the price lands on the parent.

BackgroundWhat Kennedy promised the Senate health committee to win Cassidy's vote5 facts
  • Keep the CDC's existing childhood immunization schedule "without changes" — the exact commitment Cassidy read aloud on the Senate floor before voting yes.
  • Give the committee 30 days' advance notice before changing the membership or process of the CDC's vaccine advisory panel.
  • Appear before the committee every quarter, in person, to answer for HHS decisions.
  • Leave in place the CDC's published materials stating that vaccines do not cause autism.
  • Meet with Cassidy "multiple times a month," a standing working arrangement between a secretary and a committee chairman.

What we’re less sure of2 of 8 claims