President Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention won the support of a crucial Republican on Thursday after a page on the agency’s website about vaccines and autism was modified to address his objections.
The page still asserts that vaccines may be linked to autism — a claim for which there is no scientific evidence and which infuriated Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and the chairman of the Senate health committee, who is a physician. But the revised page now includes a fresh statement at the bottom saying scientists “have not identified the root causes” of the disorder.
The nominee, Dr. Erica Schwartz, voiced strong support for the safety and efficacy of vaccines in testimony before the panel last week. But she faced an intense grilling from Mr. Cassidy about whether she would stand up to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose ardent vaccine skepticism is of deep concern to the senator.
Until Thursday morning, Mr. Cassidy had declined to say whether he would vote to confirm Dr. Schwartz. In finally announcing his support for her, the senator referred to the changes to the C.D.C. website.
“As a sign of good faith, H.H.S. has now modified the C.D.C.’s autism and vaccines web page,” Mr. Cassidy said, referring to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. “There’s more to do to repair damage that has been done to the U.S. public health response, but this is a start.”
The committee, which met for a brief two minutes in public session on Thursday, was supposed to vote on Dr. Schwartz’s nomination then. But the vote was delayed until next week because of the absence of at least one other Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who was tending to a family emergency.
Mr. Cassidy, who has less than six months left in the Senate, had little incentive to please President Trump; he recently lost his primary to two other Republicans, one of whom was backed by Mr. Trump and allies of Mr. Kennedy. He also has tangled bitterly with Mr. Kennedy, particularly over the secretary’s insistence that vaccines may be linked to autism.
But Mr. Cassidy said he had decided to support Dr. Schwartz, a deputy surgeon general in the first Trump administration, after speaking with her following the hearing, reviewing the transcript and talking to people who have worked with her.
“C.D.C. needs someone who understands that the way to prevent vaccine-preventable diseases is to reassure the public that vaccines are safe and effective,” Mr. Cassidy said on Thursday. Of Dr. Schwartz, he added, “I’m confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not.”
With Mr. Cassidy’s announcement, and the decision to wait for all Republicans to be present for the vote, it appears likely that Dr. Schwartz’s nomination will be approved and forwarded to the full Senate, probably on a party-line vote.
The panel’s ranking member, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, said he was impressed with Dr. Schwartz, who is a lawyer as well as a physician. Mr. Sanders also said he shared Mr. Cassidy’s concerns about “major public health crises” and “conspiracy theorists telling parents all over this country that vaccines don’t work or vaccines are dangerous.”
But he said he would vote against her, because he is not convinced that Dr. Schwartz would be able to stand up to Mr. Kennedy, who runs the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the C.D.C.
“I am afraid that right now within H.H.S. we have a secretary who will not tolerate dissent,” Mr. Sanders said.
Last year, Mr. Kennedy ordered the C.D.C. to change its website on vaccines and autism by abandoning its longstanding position that the two are not linked. The updated web page kept the old headline — “Autism and Vaccines” — and added an asterisk saying the headline remained intact only because of a promise to Mr. Cassidy.
The page still says the statement that vaccines do not cause autism “is not an evidence-based claim.” But the reference to Mr. Cassidy has been removed and the asterisk is now followed by a new statement.
“Scientists have not identified the root causes of autism,” the page now says, adding that Mr. Kennedy’s department “continues to support rigorous scientific research and will update this page as reliable new evidence becomes available.”
The C.D.C. has been without a permanent leader for all but one month of Mr. Trump’s second administration, as the president has struggled to find someone acceptable to the Senate. He withdrew the name of his first nominee, Dr. David Weldon, a former Florida congressman, after Dr. Weldon could not garner enough Republican support.
His second nominee, Susan Monarez, was confirmed but the White House fired her at Mr. Kennedy’s urging just 29 days later.
The agency has been run for nearly a year on an acting basis, most recently by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health.
