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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health Committee, grew angry with President Trump’s nominee to lead the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday over a misleading social media post about the hepatitis B vaccine.
Sean Kaufman, Trump’s nominee to lead ASPR, appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions during which Cassidy used his time to question him on a past LinkedIn post he’d written about the hepatitis B vaccine.
Cassidy, a longtime physician, is a staunch advocate of immunizations against hepatitis B as he had specialized in treating liver conditions.
In a since-deleted LinkedIn post published in May 2025, Kaufman argued against administering the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine.
“Most parents aren’t letting their babies run around practicing high-risk sexual behaviors or sharing needles. So, what’s the rush? Why is this standard practice in the U.S.?” Kaufman wrote.
“Many countries—Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the UK—don’t even offer Hep B vaccines to infants. Some countries don’t offer it at all,” he added. “Curious about where Hep B is most prevalent? Here’s a handy graph. And just for fun, China, India, and Indonesia vaccinate at birth—ironic, considering they lead the pack in Hep B rates.”
Cassidy commented on this post, noting that the countries Kaufman cited as administering the birth dose do so because they have the highest rates of hepatitis B being passed from mother to infant. The senator called Kaufman’s post “either uninformed or deliberately misleading.”
Slamming his hand on the dais, Cassidy half-shouted at Kaufman, “I don’t know what you were thinking. Why would you say — why would you repeat those damn lies?”
“Because that destroys trust, and we don’t start getting back to where we trust unless people speak the truth,” said Cassidy. “I’m sorry to be kind of worked up about this, but I’ve seen people die from these vaccine-preventable diseases, including hepatitis B, and you’re going to be one of the leaders in our response.”
In response, Kaufman said he had taken down that LinkedIn post for “multiple reasons” including that it was “actually dividing people.” In the same post, he had written, “If you call me an antivaxxer, then I’ll be forced to call you a pedophile.”
“But that post did have a critical aspect within that post, Senator Cassidy,” added Kaufman. “I did say that I’ve always believed that vaccines are the gold standard of public health.”
He denied linking vaccinations to autism or allergies, though Cassidy argued he had created a link by including the topics in the same post as vaccinations. Kaufman insisted he was a believer in vaccines.
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