Donald Trump is facing a simmering Republican backlash over the policies of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, amid unease over the administration’s pronouncements over the causes of autism and changes to children’s vaccine policy.
Republicans in Congress are threatening to “break ranks” after this week’s White House announcement by Trump – flanked by Kennedy – claiming a link between autism and Tylenol, an over-the-counter medication, also known as paracetamol, that is widely used to treat pain relief experienced by pregnant women.
Medical experts and autism specialists say there is no scientific evidence to support the claim.
Leading the rebellion is Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator for Louisiana and chair of the Senate health committee, who previously voted to confirm Kennedy to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), despite having voiced misgivings about his anti-vaccine views.
“HHS should release the new data that it has to support this claim,” Cassidy, a medical doctor, wrote on social media. “The preponderance of evidence shows that this is not the case. The concern is that women will be left with no options to manage pain in pregnancy.”
Cassidy, who is up for re-election to the Senate next year, expanded on his comments in an interview with the Hill.
“You’re going to change a medical guideline without science?” he told the site, referring to last week’s Senate testimony by Susan Monarez. She said during a hearing that she was sacked as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after Kennedy pressed her to approve new childhood vaccination recommendations regardless of scientific data.
“I mean, you’re going to build a bridge without physics? You’re going to fly a plane without engineering?”
Other Republicans supported Cassidy’s critique, including Susan Collins, a senator for Maine.
“It appears that [Monarez] was under a lot of pressure to approve recommendations that may come from the [vaccine advisory] committee that may lack scientific basis, so that is disturbing and would undermine our public health efforts,” Collins told the Hill.
“I’m very pleased that Chairman Cassidy is having these hearings.”
Lisa Murkowski, a senator for Alaska, called Monarez’s description of the workings of Kennedy’s vaccine policy committee “very unsettling and very concerning”.
Others said Kennedy threatened to become a political liability for Trump.
“You see a lot of Republicans starting to break ranks here, and there’s a lot of noise. I think it will come down to Trump and what his tolerance level is for all this noise around [Kennedy],” one unnamed senator told the Hill.
“I don’t think he likes all the noise. He hasn’t liked that previously. He has a really low tolerance level for that, but Bobby Kennedy is different. He’s not like anyone else in the cabinet.”
Medical bodies including the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have endorsed the use of acetaminophen – a principal ingredient of Tylenol – as a treatment for fever and pain during pregnancy after Trump advised women during Monday’s press conference to avoid taking the drug and instead “tough it out”.
