An eight-minute exchange at the end of #Casey #Means’ two-hour confirmationhearing captured the potential and the predicament the MAHA movement has created for itself.
Means -- an entrepreneurial wellness influencer with a medical degree from Stanford -- appeared on Wednesday at the Senate health committee -- to be confirmed as the U.S. #surgeon #general.
She came prepared with testimony focused on the rise of chronic disease and the need for
“restoring wholeness for Americans
— physically, mentally, and societally.”
As a leader of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 👉 "Make America Healthy Again" movement,
she received a friendly reception for many of her positions on improving nutrition, finding the “root causes” of diseases, and fighting the sometimes harmful effects of social media on children.
But at the beginning and end of the hearing, she found herself being pressed on the issue of #vaccination by committee chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), -- himself a physician.
Cassidy provided the pivotal vote a year ago to confirm Kennedy as health secretary,
but only after extracting various promises from Kennedy on vaccines
— many of which have been broken.
On Wednesday, Cassidy appeared determined to revisit the issue.
One of his first questions to Means was about “promotion of vaccine skepticism.”
Means repeatedly invoked "shared decision-making"
— a term that is itself contentious
— between doctors and parents,
called for more research studies about potential links between vaccine and autism
-- despite long-settled answers,
and demonstrated support for new vaccine guidelines put in place by a vaccine advisory panel remade by Kennedy to reflect his views.
Cassidy’s initial questions covered measles, flu, and whooping cough,
which is having an outbreak in his state of Louisiana.
“Children have actually died from it.
Think about it, about the age of your child dying from a vaccine-preventable disease.
And some have been scared to vaccinate their children because they’ve been told incorrectly that vaccines cause autism,” he said.
“Do you believe that vaccines, whether individually or collectively, contribute to autism?”
⚠️Means did not answer directly, but praised the administration for committing $50 millions in funding to look at environmental factors that might contribute to autism.
Cassidy wanted more on vaccines being falsely linked to autism.
“A lot of evidence is showing that they’re not implicated. Do you not accept that evidence?” he asked.
“I do accept that evidence. ⚠️I also think that science is never settled,” she replied.
Most contentious was the question of when to give hepatitis B vaccines.
Despite overwhelming evidence in favor of giving doses to newborns
(a 90% reduction in infections),
the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance leaves that decision to parents and doctors,
-- overturning a universal recommendation to administer the vaccine at birth to prevent serious liver disease.
Other senators of both parties also took up the theme of vaccines.
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) spoke of hepatitis B risk among Native populations in western Alaska.
“I need to try to understand your thinking on that,
given the medical consensus that this vaccine prevents this serious liver disease
and liver cancer
that we again were able to demonstrate in real time, real life,
with that recommendation
and now the view that you seem to be taking on this is not necessary for newborn,” Murkowski said.
https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/25/casey-means-bill-cassidy-face-off-on-vaccines/
