Conservative Radio Host Erick Erickson Slams Sen. Bill Cassidy After RFK Jr. Axes Vaccine Panel: ‘Coward’

(Tony Gutierrez/Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP photos)

Conservative radio personality Erick Erickson lashed out at Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) after Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the CDC’s entire vaccine advisory panel.

“Senator @BillCassidy could have stopped this, but was a coward,” Erickson, host of the Erick Erickson Show said in a short, but scathing X post Monday.

In a reply to the original post, Erickson added: “Cassidy, as Chairman of the committee that reviewed Kennedy could have single handedly blocked his nomination and chose not to.”

Kennedy, who has a reputation over the years as a vaccine skeptic, “retired” each of the 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) immunization advisory panel on Monday, The New York Times reported.

Later Monday, Cassidy, a doctor who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, posted on X: “Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion. I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”

Erickson, for his part, has been opposed to Kennedy’s nomination to lead HHS since the beginning, at one point calling him “too controversial.”