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U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) speaks at the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s confirmation hearing for Erica Schwartz as CDC director on July 15, 2026.<\/span>Michael Brochstein\/Sipa USA\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When Sen. Bill Cassidy<\/span> on Thursday expressed his support for Erica Schwartz, President Trump\u2019s pick for CDC director, he signaled that he may once again cast a critical vote for a candidate that poses a risk to US public health.<\/p>\n At her confirmation hearing earlier this month, Schwartz, who has a medical degree, <\/strong>sidestepped questions<\/a> on whether she would resist pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to carry out policies that she believed contradicted scientific evidence.<\/p>\n After this, Cassidy, a physician and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, withheld his support of Schwartz. But on Thursday, he pivoted, telling committee members<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019m confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not.\u201d The Louisiana senator said he now trusts Schwartz<\/a> after they spoke privately, and after federal officials made a \u201cgood faith\u201d change to the CDC\u2019s website that linked vaccines and autism<\/a>. The webpage still cites the retracted study that makes this vaccine-autism link, and now includes an asterisk<\/a> with a note that \u201cScientists have not identified the root causes of autism.\u201d<\/p>\n The page also still states that \u201cstudies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.\u201d This idea has been disproven by decades of scientific research<\/a>.<\/p>\n