CSPAN - Washington Journal Dr. Richard Besser
Aired: 2026-02-19
Duration: 19:54


=== Concerns Over CDC Funding Reduction (04:17) ===

[00:00:00]  Represented Virginia's 7th district in the U.S. House for several terms.
[00:00:04]  Before entering public life, the governor served as a CIA officer, working to find, recruit, and build relationships with foreign nationals of value to the U.S. government.
[00:00:13]  Before joining the CIA, she worked as a teacher and a postal inspector, something her father did as well.
[00:00:19]  A reminder, we'll have full, complete coverage of all of the State of the Union events starting Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern.
[00:00:26]  Watch the President's remarks, Governor Spanberger's response, and interviews with lawmakers as they react to the evening.
[00:00:33]  All available on C-SPAN, C-SPAN2, online at c-span.org, and on C-SPAN Now, our free video app.
[00:00:44]  Welcome back to the program.
[00:00:45]  Joining us now to talk about public health policy is Dr. Richard Besser.
[00:00:49]  He was the acting director of the CDC during the Obama administration.
[00:00:54]  He's currently president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
[00:00:58]  Dr. Besser, welcome to the program.
[00:01:01]  Thanks for having me on, Mimi.
[00:01:02]  It's always great to be here.
[00:01:03]  If you could just start by reminding us about the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, your mission, and how you're funded.
[00:01:11]  Yeah, so we are a large national foundation.
[00:01:15]  We're based in Princeton, New Jersey, and our focus is on working towards a future where health is not a privilege, but a right for everybody.
[00:01:26]  We are fully endowed.
[00:01:28]  Our original resources came from an endowment from Robert Wood Johnson II, who built up the Johnson Johnson, a large pharmaceutical company.
[00:01:39]  He left his resources for this foundation.
[00:01:44]  And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, just celebrated his one year since he was sworn in as Secretary.
[00:01:55]  What grade would you give him for the year?
[00:01:59]  Well, you know, I think he has been successful at what he has tried to do.
[00:02:05]  But what concerns me is that before he became Secretary of Health, he was one of the nation's leading anti-vaccine advocates.
[00:02:15]  He did more to spread distrust and misinformation around vaccines than just about anybody.
[00:02:21]  And as Secretary of Health, he was very successful in doing that.
[00:02:25]  In terms of the nation's health, I would give him a failing grade because I think we are much worse off, at much greater risk to health threats than we were before he became Secretary of Health.
[00:02:38]  Can you give us a little bit more information on what exactly you think the nation's health is at risk as a result of his policies?
[00:02:48]  Yeah, you know, there are a number of areas.
[00:02:53]  He came in with a strong view that our nation's governmental health system was broken.
[00:03:03]  And so there was a large slashing of positions within the Department of Health and Human Services across the board.
[00:03:10]  The area that I focus on in a big way is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[00:03:17]  I worked there for 13 years.
[00:03:20]  And it's an institution that was the gold standard for public health, for governmental public health around the world.
[00:03:27]  And the people who work there and who continue to work there work tirelessly to promote health and protect health here and around the globe.
[00:03:37]  But thousands of positions were slashed from the CDC and positions that put us at risk around the country.
[00:03:46]  You know, just one simple example, early on in his tenure, after there were the initial slashes at the CDC, Milwaukee was dealing with a real challenge with lead in their water.
[00:04:00]  And they called CDC for assistance, but the department that dealt with lead poisoning was no longer there.
[00:04:07]  That's a big challenge.
[00:04:09]  Secretary Kennedy talks about the importance of trying to reduce chronic diseases and chronic diseases that start in childhood.

=== Vaccines, Decision-Making, and Trust (15:18) ===

[00:04:17]  I'm a pediatrician and I'm all for that.
[00:04:20]  But he eliminated the Office on Smoking and Health, which is the number one preventable cause of chronic disease.
[00:04:28]  So, those are just a couple examples of the way that there's been harm.
[00:04:33]  There's been harm in terms of how the government has responded or not responded to the spread of measles around our country.
[00:04:42]  But my big concern is how much mistrust he has spread around vaccines, which are so important to protecting the lives and the health of our children.
[00:04:53]  Well, to that point on vaccines, I want to show you the CDC website that now states this.
[00:04:59]  The claim vaccines do not cause autism is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
[00:05:09]  It continues studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities, and that HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations into plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.
[00:05:25]  Your reaction to that.
[00:05:28]  Well, it's falsehood after falsehood.
[00:05:31]  You know, the question as to whether autism was a cause or one of the causes of autism was an important question to ask and to address.
[00:05:41]  But the science has been done to address that question.
[00:05:45]  And so to put that on the CDC's website just spreads misinformation.
[00:05:50]  And, you know, it leads to...
[00:05:51]  But Dr. Besser, it's saying that there have been studies that do support that link.
[00:05:57]  Have they been taken into account?
[00:05:59]  Because this is saying they have not.
[00:06:01]  Yeah, that's a lie.
[00:06:03]  Not a lie that there are studies that look at a link, but they have to be looked at within the full context of all of the research that's been done.
[00:06:12]  You know, there is research of different, very varying levels of quality.
[00:06:17]  That's been looked at.
[00:06:18]  It's been looked at by the National Institutes of Health.
[00:06:21]  It's been looked at by the National Academy of Medicine.
[00:06:24]  It's been reviewed time and time again.
[00:06:27]  And what we're seeing is really a diversion of resources that could be going to ensure that those who are on the autism spectrum can lead as full a life as possible.
[00:06:40]  I talk to individuals who are in the field of autism research, and they are just distraught at the federal dollars that are being diverted back to studying questions that have already been answered.
[00:06:53]  It's not that their question shouldn't have been answered, but it's been answered and it's been addressed.
[00:06:58]  And to keep putting it forward as a valid scientific question leads to confusion and unfortunately will lead some parents who want to do right by their children to withhold vaccines that could help keep their children safe.
[00:07:14]  So the childhood vaccination schedule has been changed.
[00:07:18]  Do you think that that is going to be putting children at risk of diseases?
[00:07:22]  I do.
[00:07:23]  I do.
[00:07:25]  But even though Europe has a much shorter vaccine schedule, I mean, the argument was being made that we've got way too many and that they're not necessary.
[00:07:34]  Yeah, I mean, you can pick and choose.
[00:07:36]  The Secretary was very selective in terms of what countries he looked at for that comparison.
[00:07:43]  We are very much in line with most wealthy countries in terms of our approach to vaccines.
[00:07:48]  But it's really important that each country looks at each disease, looks at the benefits and risks of both the vaccine and the disease, and makes a decision based on that.
[00:08:03]  The idea that we are the same as Denmark is absolutely absurd.
[00:08:09]  Denmark is a very small country.
[00:08:11]  It has universal health care.
[00:08:13]  It has a much higher level of standard of living than we do across our nation.
[00:08:19]  And so that's not the way you make these decisions.
[00:08:22]  You look at each disease, you look at the risk from that disease, you look at the opportunities prevention for prevention, and then you make a recommendation.
[00:08:31]  And then, you know, I practiced pediatrics for more than 30 years, and there's always been shared decision-making around vaccines.
[00:08:40]  You're always in conversations with parents around vaccines, what the potential benefits are from the vaccine, what the potential risks are.
[00:08:50]  And it's a shared decision.
[00:08:52]  To say now that there's now a series of diseases that are for shared decision-making and the others are recommended strikes me as absurd and will put children at risk from diseases where parents say, well, I guess that one isn't as important anymore.
[00:09:08]  You know, during the course of my life as a pediatrician, I used to feel such joy when vaccines were developed so that I no longer had to see families suffering from diseases that could be prevented.
[00:09:26]  Rotavirus is a typical one.
[00:09:28]  That is now in the list of diseases that's not routinely recommended.
[00:09:33]  It's there under shared decision making.
[00:09:35]  Well, I remember when I was training as a pediatrician in Baltimore and a young child came in with rotavirus diarrhea.
[00:09:45]  You can get dehydrated very quickly and young children are at risk for severe consequences from profound dehydration.
[00:09:55]  And a child came in with profound dehydration.
[00:09:59]  We tried as much as we could to save that child and we couldn't.
[00:10:02]  And to see the suffering that that family went through in losing a child and then to see a vaccine come along that prevents that and now it's no longer on the recommended list to me, it just defies logic.
[00:10:16]  We've got a question on public health for Dr. Richard Besser.
[00:10:20]  He'll be with us for about 25 minutes.
[00:10:22]  You can start calling in now.
[00:10:23]  Republicans are on 202748-8001.
[00:10:27]  Democrats 202748-8000 and Independents 202-748-8002.
[00:10:32]  Well, one of the illnesses is measles.
[00:10:38]  And I've got a map here showing the cases of measles in the U.S. this year in 2026, given the states.
[00:10:48]  South Carolina has over 616 cases.
[00:10:53]  Can you explain?
[00:10:55]  I mean, the Secretary has said that he recommends the measles vaccine for every child.
[00:11:02]  Why are there so many cases of measles around the country?
[00:11:05]  Yeah, you know, measles is a really important disease to pay attention to.
[00:11:11]  It's one of the most, if not the most contagious virus that we know of.
[00:11:17]  And so it will pick up on any community in which the vaccination rates in children are not almost uniformly there.
[00:11:26]  So anything below 95% of children being vaccinated, and you'll see the spread of measles.
[00:11:34]  And so what we're seeing by the rise in measles around the country is that there are pockets where the coverage rates for measles are low.
[00:11:45]  And they're low for a number of reasons.
[00:11:47]  That is one of the vaccines that the Secretary has spread a lot of misinformation around.
[00:11:54]  Last year, when we saw measles starting to rise in Texas, he was very slow out of the gate in terms of saying anything about recommending the measles vaccine.
[00:12:04]  The normal approach would be to put a lot of federal resources towards controlling measles wherever you see it.
[00:12:13]  I said I'd served at the CDC for 13 years.
[00:12:16]  For four of those years, I ran emergency response during the Republican administration under George W. Bush.
[00:12:23]  And there was never a sense of politics affecting what we did as a public health agency.
[00:12:30]  If there was a measles outbreak or increase, we would throw everything at it to try and control it, to make sure that every child had had their measles vaccine or their second dose of vaccine if they were older.
[00:12:44]  We made sure that adults who hadn't been vaccinated had access to measles vaccination.
[00:12:51]  And for the past 25 years, we had been certified as having eliminated measles.
[00:12:56]  Didn't mean we didn't have any cases.
[00:12:58]  It meant that the only cases we had were measles that came into the United States from another country and then spread locally before being controlled.
[00:13:07]  I'm very concerned that we're about to lose that status because of what your map shows.
[00:13:12]  That shows measles spreading around the country, and it will spread.
[00:13:15]  It does not respect state borders.
[00:13:17]  So what's happening in South Carolina is not just happening in South Carolina.
[00:13:21]  It's happening in other places as well.
[00:13:23]  And quickly before we get to calls, I want to ask you about the CDC leadership situation.
[00:13:30]  It was just reported by the New York Times that the NIH director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, will serve as acting CDC director until the president appoints somebody else, a permanent director.
[00:13:43]  This is now the third leader of the CDC during the second Trump administration.
[00:13:49]  It is saying the article here quotes that he is a physician, but that public health experts, including former CDC officials, say it will be nearly impossible for Dr. Bhattacharya to run both the nation's biomedical research agency and its public health agency, that being the CDC.
[00:14:10]  Your thoughts on that?
[00:14:13]  Yeah, you know, I had the honor of serving as acting director of the CDC at the start of the Obama administration.
[00:14:19]  And the reason I was put in that job was because I had run emergency preparedness and response for four years.
[00:14:26]  You want someone in that seat who knows what they're doing in the event of a public health emergency, because I can't tell you what the next public health emergency will be, but I can tell you that there will be one.
[00:14:37]  There will be two.
[00:14:38]  There will be many.
[00:14:39]  The idea that someone could run the NIH and CDC demonstrates a total lack of understanding as to what the CDC is supposed to be doing in terms of protecting the health of people here and around the world.
[00:14:54]  I just don't see how someone can do it.
[00:14:58]  I found it to be more than a full-time job.
[00:15:02]  And I was in the chair when the H1N1, the swine flu pandemic hit in 2009.
[00:15:09]  I don't know what we will do as a nation if we get another flu pandemic, if we get another major public health threat.
[00:15:18]  And we have someone who's leading two very critical agencies at that time.
[00:15:22]  Let's talk to Chuck in Michigan, Independent Line.
[00:15:26]  You're on with Dr. Richard Besser.
[00:15:28]  Good morning, Chuck.
[00:15:30]  Hello, C. Bands.
[00:15:32]  First time calling.
[00:15:33]  Yeah, I was going to ask him, all the facts that the CDC gave us during the pandemic were always wrong.
[00:15:41]  And how can we believe what he's saying now when they told us that it was mandatory to get the shots and you wouldn't get the COVID if you got the shot?
[00:15:51]  Then they told us you couldn't spread the COVID if you got the shot.
[00:15:54]  Then they told us if you wear masks, you won't get COVID and all that stuff was not accurate.
[00:16:02]  And then they got the MNR shots that have a lot of side effects and blood clots and heart attacks and all this.
[00:16:11]  I know a lot of my friends had after effects from it.
[00:16:14]  I just wondered how could he say that these vaccines are not harmful.
[00:16:19]  A lot of them are from what the ingredients they put in.
[00:16:23]  All right.
[00:16:24]  Dr. Besser.
[00:16:26]  Thanks for that question.
[00:16:28]  You know, public health took a big hit during COVID for a lot of reasons.
[00:16:36]  You know, when I was at CDC in 2009 at the start of the swine flu pandemic, one of the things that was clear was that to maintain trust with the American people, we needed to communicate directly about what we knew, what we didn't know, and what we were doing to try and get answers.
[00:16:54]  And as we learned more, we were able to talk to the public and say, we've learned something new, and so our recommendations are changing.
[00:17:03]  That did not happen during COVID.
[00:17:06]  CDC and our public health leaders were cut off from the media, were cut off from the public.
[00:17:11]  And so when there was learning, when there was a new finding that led the CDC to change a recommendation and new learning that found that a previous recommendation had been wrong, CDC didn't have the opportunity to share that directly.
[00:17:27]  Because what should happen is that as you learn more and as your recommendations then get better, that trust increases.
[00:17:36]  But we saw direct attempts, successful attempts to politicize the response to COVID so that whenever there was a change in a recommendation, it was put forward as it's a flip-flop, public health doesn't know what they're doing, rather than putting it forward as public health is learning and here's what you can do to protect your health.
[00:17:56]  I also believe that there wasn't as much transparency during the pandemic in terms of what was known, what was not known, what recommendations were based on best opinion versus good science.
[00:18:08]  And those are different things.
[00:18:10]  At the start of a new disease outbreak, all of your recommendations are going to be based on expert opinion.
[00:18:18]  But then as you learn more, then you're going to refine those and base them on evidence.
[00:18:22]  But I agree there was a real hit to trust.
[00:18:25]  And with the politicization we have right now, with the big divide in our country, we're seeing people's willingness to get vaccinated, their belief in vaccines to align with political affiliation.
[00:18:39]  And that's a really dangerous thing because viruses don't care what political party you live in.
[00:18:45]  They don't care if you live in a red state or a blue state, in a rural community or an urban community.
[00:18:50]  They are equal opportunity agents that are there to harm our health.
[00:18:56]  And we need to figure out how do we close the politics so that it truly is a situation where we're all working off the same information and can make informed decisions about our health that are based on good science.
[00:19:09]  Well, let's talk about the flu vaccine, Dr. Besser, because the FDA had initially refused to review Moderna's flu vaccine.
[00:19:18]  New York Times reporting that the FDA has reversed that decision and has agreed to review that vaccine.
[00:19:25]  It says Moderna held further discussions with regulators and announced that the agency would accept the company's application for approval of its flu vaccine.

=== Moderna's mRNA Controversy (00:18) ===

[00:19:36]  What do you make of that situation on that mRNA technology?
[00:19:41]  Yeah, you know, Mimi, I can't comment in particular on the Moderna situation.
[00:19:46]  As a foundation, we have invested in that company and that.
[00:19:50]  It's the second town hall since first being elected to office.