Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is calling on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to support efforts to vaccinate infants against whooping cough amid a nationwide outbreak of the disease fueled by low vaccination rates.
Cassidy wrote to Kennedy in a letter on Friday that he also posted to X that he believes the secretary’s endorsement of the vaccine for whooping cough, also known as pertussis, would bolster vaccination rates among the most vulnerable communities.
“I want to work together to stop pertussis,” Cassidy’s letter said. “Your strong public support for this vaccine will save lives. Your words are a powerful tool in protecting the health of the American people.”
Pertussis cases have increased each year since the early 2000s, with about 10,000 cases per year according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Aug. 23, CDC data indicate more than 19,000 whooping cough cases this year across the United States. Washington state has had the most cases, nearly 1,800, while Oregon, California, and Florida each have roughly 1,200.
Focused on Louisiana, Cassidy posted on X on Thursday that his state has seen 386 pertussis cases this year, including 63 hospitalizations and two infant deaths. Nearly two-thirds of the cases have been infants, mostly under age one.
The senator wrote to Kennedy on Friday that “among those hospitalized in Louisiana, 75 percent were either unvaccinated or not up to date on pertussis vaccinations.”
Early symptoms of whooping cough appear similar to a common cold, but babies with the infection can struggle to breathe. After one to two weeks of mild symptoms, the patient can have severe coughing fits that make them vomit, struggle to breathe, or even fracture ribs.
In his letter, Cassidy highlighted Kennedy’s response to the measles outbreak in West Texas earlier this year as a model for how the health secretary should respond to the current nationwide whooping cough outbreak.
Earlier this year, measles cases spread across much of the southwest, starting in an undervaccinated Mennonite community in Texas. Two children died from measles during the outbreak, and hundreds more were infected.
Kennedy, who has been an outspoken critic of the measles vaccine in the past, endorsed the vaccination as the best way to protect children and the community from disease. Cassidy wrote that Kennedy’s endorsement was essential to getting the measles outbreak under control.
“Families responded to your decisive leadership when you clearly promoted the [Measles, Mumps, and Rubella] vaccine to stop the outbreak in West Texas,” wrote Cassidy. “They would respond again to your call that the [Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis] vaccine is the best way to protect our babies. We can ensure that no child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease.”
According to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, only 80.4% of children under age 2 received all four doses of the DTaP or equivalent vaccine. That’s roughly 10 percentage points lower than the 91% vaccinated against measles.
During his years of criticizing vaccine safety, Kennedy has been less vocal about the DTaP vaccine than about the measles vaccine, but he hasn’t been entirely supportive either.
In June, Kennedy pulled U.S. funding from the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, a global vaccination effort, accusing the organization of having “neglected the key issue of vaccine safety.”
He particularly condemned Gavi’s use of the whole-cell diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus vaccine instead of the acellular DTaP vaccine, which is more commonly used in high-income countries.
Kennedy used as evidence a 2017 study that examined child mortality in West Africa in the late 1970s to assert that children who receive the DTaP vaccine have a higher all-cause mortality rate than those who are unvaccinated, but the study has been widely discredited.
HHS did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment on whether Kennedy planned to support increased DTaP vaccine uptake.
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Kennedy has come under increasingly harsher criticism in recent weeks because of what critics call his attempt to dismantle public support for and access to critical vaccines.
Next week, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to meet for the second time since Kennedy disbanded all 17 former members and appointed eight new members more in line with his vaccine-skeptic point of view.
