Two nominees for high-profile health roles in the Trump administration faced scrutiny from the Senate health committee Wednesday—and both crashed and burned in their own special ways.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) scrutinized Erica Schwartz, the nominee for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Sean Kaufman, up for the role of assistant secretary for preparedness and response.

Schwartz's assignment

Public health experts were "cautiously optimistic" about Schwartz's nomination. She is well-respected and holds views in line with evidence-based medicine, including being supportive of vaccinations—in contrast to anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom she will serve under. She is also highly qualified for the role, with a medical degree, a master's degree in public health, and a law degree. She's had a long career as a Navy Officer and previously held the roles of chief medical officer for the US Coast Guard and deputy surgeon general in the first Trump administration.

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With no new data or clear reasoning, a panel of advisors hand-selected by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted last September to strip federal recommendations for a combination shot against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (chickenpox). An analysis published today by independent researchers does the work the advisors neglected to do before the vote and, in turn, shows how harmful the decision is to vulnerable US toddlers.

The decision last fall followed clumsy discussion by Kennedy's dubiously qualified advisors, who make up the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most noticeably, their unprompted review of the MMRV vaccine did not include a standard decision-making framework ACIP has historically used to comprehensively evaluate what the change would mean for US children in practice—including basic questions, such as which children would be affected.

Still, the decision meant that private health insurance providers would no longer be required to cover the vaccine, called MMRV. It also meant the shot would no longer be available through a federal program that provides vaccines to about half of American children, mostly from low-income families.

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Another large study has found no link between autism and Tylenol use during pregnancy, refuting claims by President Trump and anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In September, Trump and Kennedy held a press conference in which they stated without clear evidence that the common fever and pain reducer acetaminophen—sold as Tylenol in the US and also known as paracetamol—causes autism in children if taken during pregnancy. Trump repeatedly warned pregnant people not to take Tylenol and instead "tough it out" with fever and/or pain.

Medical organizations decried Trump's message, emphasizing that acetaminophen is a safe pain and fever reliever during pregnancy and that untreated fever during pregnancy is known to increase the risk of autism in babies as well as other conditions, including miscarriage, birth defects, and premature birth. Still, the president's warning was effective. Texas sued the maker of Tylenol over the alleged connection. And a study in The Lancet in March found that use of acetaminophen in pregnant patients in emergency departments fell by 10 percent after Trump's press conference.

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