Bernie Sanders holds health official’s feet to the fire on vaccines

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont refuses to let the Trump team skate around the truth on vaccine efficacy.

National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya testified before a Senate committee Tuesday, where Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont quickly cut through the stupor of anti-science rhetoric and misinformation pushed by Health and Human Services quack Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Do vaccines cause autism?” Sanders asked. “Tell that to the American people. Yes. No.” 

“I do not believe that the measles vaccine causes autism,” Bhattacharya replied.

“I didn't ask ‘measles.’ Do vaccines cause autism?” Sanders repeated.

“I have not seen a study that suggests any single vaccine causes autism,” Bhattacharya said. 

Bhattacharya’s perverse attempt to split hairs ignoring the settled science of vaccines is clearly in service of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda. 

Kennedy and other anti-vaxxers have repeatedly failed to produce evidence linking vaccines to autism, but their misinformation campaign has succeeded in eroding public trust. As a result, the United States has falling vaccine rates and the largest measles outbreak in decades.

Now the country is on the brink of losing its measles-free status, due in no small part to the anti-vaccine movement championed by Kennedy.