NEWS: Senator Blunt Rochester Defends Science-Backed Vaccines for American Families

Click HERE to watch Senator Blunt Rochester's full remarks and exchange with Dr. Bhattacharya.

Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today participated in a hearing with Dr. Jayanta ("Jay") Bhattacharya, the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Senator Blunt Rochester's questions for Dr. Bhattacharya focused on the Trump administration's unprecedented assault on Americans' trust in vaccines.

On January 28, Senator Blunt Rochester joined HELP Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in leading 18 of their colleagues to demand answers from Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the recent overhaul of the child and adolescent immunization schedule. The Senators highlighted the lack of evidence supporting the changes and called for the immediate reinstatement of the previous, science-backed vaccine schedule.

Senator Blunt Rochester's full remarks and exchange with Dr. Bhattacharya can be found HERE. A key excerpt is below:

Senator Blunt Rochester: "Did you recommend any type of plan to measure the impact of the changes to this childhood vaccine schedule on health outcomes?"

Dr. Bhattacharya: "The CDC tracks that carefully. So, those measures will be released publicly just as the CDC always does."

Senator Blunt Rochester: "We know specific vaccination rates must be met to prevent outbreaks. So, it seems very reasonable that this is something that would have or should have been evaluated before making that kind of sweeping decision. Your memo notes that the changes were made after 'careful review of the current vaccine schedule, peer nation schedules, and best practices.' These are couple of yes or no questions. Did you consider the unique patterns and causes of disease in each region like the U.S. versus Europe?"

Dr. Bhattacharya: "I'm not the author of the memo itself."

Senator Blunt Rochester: "So, you're not sure?"

Dr. Bhattacharya: "No, I mean, I read the memo very carefully. It was a careful analysis of the vaccine schedules of other countries, of our peer nations. The Danish schedules, other Scandinavian countries."

Senator Blunt Rochester: "I'm going to get to that. In that assessment, did we look at the differences in pre-and postnatal, pediatric and primary care? Or consider maternity leave policies or health insurance or health care workforce?"

Dr. Bhattacharya: "We considered that there are differences in health care policies, absolutely. There is a fallacy here, right? The idea Americans have sort of different ways of accessing health care than Scandinavians, and in some ways, [that] the Scandinavians have it easier makes it harder for Americans…In the context of Americans having more difficulty getting access to health care - you essentially are making parents feel guilty over things they don't have control over."

Senator Blunt Rochester: "It was just strange to me that we are comparing ourselves to Denmark as a peer nation. Denmark has 6 million people; we have 340 million people from all walks of life. That's like 57 times larger. Denmark has socialized medicine and universal health care. The United States does not. Parents in Denmark are entitled to paid parental leave and in the U.S., this is not guaranteed. I'm trying to understand the comparison of Denmark to the United States with the exception that they have one of the lowest recommended [vaccine schedules]."

Dr. Bhattacharya: "I think the key thing in Denmark is that they have strong public trust in public health. That's what we are trying to do - reestablish that public trust. The vaccination rates - there's a ton of literature on this. The vaccination rate responds very sensitively to the level of public trust in public health."

Senator Blunt Rochester: "I totally agree with you on the public trust piece. I think what is concerning me is that instead of modernizing, we're actually going backwards to a time when we did not even have vaccines. So, to me, it's very important that we be really clear about the science."

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Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester represents Delaware in the United States Senate where she serves on the Committees on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Environment and Public Works; and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.