The Senate Criticized the Trump Administration Over a Large-Scale Measles Outbreak — Reuters
Bill Cassidy, chairman of the U.S. Senate Health Committee, a Republican from Louisiana and a physician by training, strongly opposed the Donald Trump administration’s vaccination policy amid a massive measles outbreak in the country.
The statement was made on September 16 during hearings on three of Trump’s nominees for top health care positions. The committee was considering the nominations of Chris Klomp for deputy secretary of health, Nicole Saphir for U.S. Surgeon General, and Timothy Westlake for director of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The fact that the hearings took place and the list of nominees have been confirmed by the Senate’s official website.
Cassidy stated that four people may have already died in Pennsylvania due to misinformation and, in his words, flawed vaccination policies.
“We have reports of four deaths in Pennsylvania,” the senator said.
He added that the country needs healthcare leaders who will make decisions “based on science, not politics or ideology.”
Cassidy was most critical of Nicole Saphir, emphasizing that the chief medical officer is effectively the “nation’s doctor,” to whom Americans turn for medical guidance. According to him, the future chief will have to restore trust in the public health system.
The senator also stated explicitly that vaccines are “generally safe and effective” and “do not cause autism.”
Cassidy separately criticized the Trump administration’s changes to childhood vaccination policy. In 2026, the HHS continued to review federal recommendations, including vaccination categories and the mechanism for individual decision-making, and earlier, the administration completely reshuffled the composition of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The senator warned that the consequences of current policies could be long-lasting.
“By the way, the CDC appears to be working now on defining death from measles. Someone said that we haven’t had to do this in decades because no one was dying from measles, but now people are dying. This will be a terrible legacy of this administration,” Cassidy said.
It should be noted that the measles outbreak in the U.S. continues to grow. According to the CDC, as of September 10, 2026, there were 3,294 confirmed cases of measles in 47 jurisdictions across the country.
Source: Reuters.
Pennsylvania has reported what is likely the third measles-related death.
