Senate grills Trump health nominees amid measles outbreak

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held confirmation hearings on Wednesday for three of President Donald Trump's nominees to top positions at the Department of Health and Human Services, with the most intense scrutiny directed at Dr. Nicole Saphier, the pick for surgeon general. Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana and a physician, used his opening statement to blame the Trump administration's vaccine policies for recent measles deaths in Pennsylvania. "Misinformation and misguided policies are leaving children and adults unprotected against disease that we know how to prevent," Cassidy said, calling the resurgence of measles a "terrible legacy for this administration." Cassidy stated that four people in Pennsylvania have died of measles because of misinformation and misguided policies. He noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working on a definition of death by measles, a task not needed for decades because no one had died from the disease. The hearing focused on the nation's worst measles outbreak in more than 35 years.