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Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) shared a post on Tuesday touting the effectiveness of vaccines following President Trump’s executive order seeking to decrease childhood vaccines and buck the standard order of shots by dividing immunizations for mumps, measles and rubella (MMR).
“Since 1974, vaccination has averted 154 million deaths, including 146 million among children younger than 5 years of whom 101 million were infants younger than 1 year,” read a post from Cornyn’s account on the social platform X.
Cornyn was directly citing an article published by The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal.
“For every death averted, 66 years of full health were gained on average, translating to 10·2 billion years of full health gained,” the post read.
The senator noted that vaccination has accounted for 40 percent of the decline in global infant mortality with a 52 percent reduction in the African region.
“In 2024, a child younger than 10 years is 40 percent more likely to survive to their next birthday relative to a hypothetical scenario of no historical vaccination. Increased survival probability is observed even well into late adulthood,” Cornyn added in the post.
The post indirectly echoes hesitancy to Trump’s changes to the schedule of childhood vaccines decried by other GOP senators including Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a medical doctor serving as the first physician to helm the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as a Ranking Member or Chairman since 1933.
“I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The President does not have the expertise to make these changes. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism,” Cassidy wrote on social platform X shortly after the order was signed.
Cornyn and Cassidy lost their seats in primaries earlier this year to Trump-backed challengers. Since then, the two have towed the line on controversial policies that originated from the White House.
One of the major debates remains tied to the argument that vaccines are linked to autism, a notion that has been debunked by medical researchers for decades.
Still, the president and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have expressed concerns with modern medical standards for vaccines and have urged parents to steer clear of certain immunizations.
“Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
“In those times, people were much healthier and of course the high rates of autism now observed did not exist,” he added.
Cassidy told parents to “listen to their child’s pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order.”
“This is so wrong,” the Louisiana senator added in a post on social platform X.
He and others have warned of potential outbreaks caused by a drop in vaccinations.
Last month, statistics showed the country is facing its worst measles outbreak in 35 years, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracking 38 distinct outbreaks and 2,465 confirmed cases.
The primary driver behind the increase in measles cases is falling childhood vaccination rates that have dropped below the critical threshold required to maintain community immunity, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
Officials at the CDC have been handling the outbreak without a Senate-confirmed agency head, after former Director Dr. Susan Monarez was ousted following clashes with Kennedy over vaccine policy.
Erica Schwartz was confirmed to lead the CDC on Wednesday in a narrow party line vote.
Her promise to lawmakers was that she “will never betray the science” and pledged to use “radical transparency” throughout her tenure in leadership.
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