Chairman Cassidy Delivers Remarks During Confirmation Hearing on Nominations for Deputy HHS Secretary, Surgeon General, and SAMHSA
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, delivered remarks during today’s confirmation hearing for the nominations of Chris Klomp to be Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Nicole Saphier to be Surgeon General, and Timothy Westlake to be Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use (SAMHSA).
Click here to watch the full hearing.
Cassidy’s opening remarks as prepared for delivery can be found below:
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will please come to order.
I appreciate you all for appearing today and for your service to the nation.
We’ve got some serious health problems right now in America: high rates of mental health conditions, substance use disorders, widespread chronic disease, and the worst measles outbreak the U.S. has seen in over 35 years, leaving thousands sick and four dead.
Measles is a vaccine preventable disease! No one should be hospitalized much less die from it.
When I practiced medicine in Baton Rouge, I treated patients suffering from vaccine preventable diseases; many of them needed liver transplants or they would die.
To suffer from any disease is hard, but to suffer from one so easily avoidable, it's even more devastating.
Misinformation and misguided policies are leaving children unprotected against diseases we know how to prevent.
Let me be clear. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and effective. They do not cause autism.
It’s not a matter of opinion. It’s a scientific fact.
The executive order which breaks up the childhood vaccine schedule means children have to get more, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe.
It deeply concerns me to see politicians giving medical advice which has ZERO scientific backing.
Scaring mothers into delaying or even altogether skipping their child’s vaccines is wrong and makes America sicker not healthier.
We need leaders who are unbiased, who make decisions based on science, not politics or ideology, and who are committed to protecting children’s health.
Mr. Klomp, you said recently, “if there’s one issue that shouldn’t be partisan in our country — that should not be red or blue, left or right — it is health.”
I wholeheartedly agree.
Your background as Chief Counselor at the Department of Health and Human Services and Director of the Center for Medicare and Deputy Administrator of CMS gives you unique insights and managerial experience that will be useful as you oversee the process and operations at HHS as Deputy Secretary.
Dr. Westlake, with your leadership, we successfully passed my HALT Fentanyl Act which protects Americans from fentanyl-related substances. Drug overdoses, largely driven by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, are the leading cause of death among young adults 18 to 45 years old. Another leading cause of death for teens and young adults is suicide. But it's not just limited to young people. 1 in 5 adults experience mental illness. More than half of them do not get treatment. These are our children, parents, friends, neighbors, loved ones. Dr. Westlake, I appreciate your commitment to addressing these issues, and I look forward to working with you to implement the mental health reforms I championed in the 21st Century Cures Act reauthorization. I’m confident you will continue to champion and promote pro-patient policies as Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use.
Dr. Saphier, if confirmed as Surgeon General, you will be the Nation’s doctor. Americans will look to you for clear medical guidance. I look forward to hearing how you plan to restore confidence in public health and assure the American people that our institutions are making science-based decisions rooted in data.
I don’t have all the answers. We don’t have all the answers. It’s ok to acknowledge that and challenge that. Posing a research hypothesis, scoping such question in an unbiased and scientifically valid manner, engaging in rigorous data analysis, and publishing peer reviewed results regardless of what it shows is responsible leadership and appropriate scientific discovery.
Declaring things contrary to evidence to be unsafe and the cause of something, especially when those claims have repeatedly and thorough been debunked and then gaslighting anyone who calls you out by saying “I’m just asking questions” and then declaring anyone who pushes back against you “as corrupted by industry” is not gold standard science, it isn’t radical transparency, it isn’t restoring trust, and it isn’t leadership. It is performative, it’s irresponsible, it damages our country, and it puts lives at risk.
With that, I recognize Senator Baldwin.
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