WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s pick to oversee preparedness and response to public health emergencies and disasters has questioned the use of the hepatitis B vaccine in infants and raised the disproven link between vaccines and autism in past comments reviewed by STAT.
Those comments by Sean Kaufman, nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, are part of an undercurrent of vaccine skepticism among some high-ranking Department of Health and Human Services officials under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — despite efforts from White House officials to steer the conversation away from vaccines.
They could also set up a clash with Senate health leader Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who will chair Kaufman’s confirmation hearing next week. Cassidy has opposed some of the more aggressive vaccine policy changes heralded by Kennedy, including speaking out against delaying the hepatitis B shot, citing his experience as a liver doctor treating patients with the illness.
But Cassidy backed Kennedy’s confirmation, despite his open discomfort with vaccine skepticism. In May, Cassidy lost his reelection bid after Kennedy and President Trump publicly accused him of stymying their Make America Healthy Again agenda.
Kaufman’s hearing, a joint appearance alongside the nominee for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Erica Schwartz, will be Cassidy’s first for an HHS nominee since his loss. Cassidy, the White House, and Kaufman did not respond to requests for comment.
Should Kaufman, co-founder of a biosafety consulting firm, be confirmed, he would oversee the nation’s countermeasures in a public health crisis, which include vaccines and personal protective equipment.
In a now-deleted May 2025 LinkedIn post, Kaufman tells readers that if they call him “an antivaxxer, then I’ll be forced to call you a pedophile” before going on to argue against giving infants the hepatitis B shot.
“And before you dismiss all this as ‘antivaxxer nonsense,’ consider this: autism,” he writes. He goes on to make the case that the hepatitis B vaccine may be linked to an increase in autism cases.
Decades of research has not found a connection between vaccines and the prevalence of autism.
Using rhetoric similar to Kennedy and others in the vaccine skeptical movement, Kaufman also raised the question of whether vaccines are linked to a whole host of health issues.
“Questions surrounding vaccine safety — be it recombinant or mRNA platforms — are not just hypothetical concerns but critical issues that demand honest investigation,” he wrote in the 2025 LinkedIn post. “We owe it to the public, especially to those who may have been unintentionally harmed, to move beyond dismissive rhetoric and into transparent, science-based discussions. The significant increases in autism, allergies, and other health issues are not mere coincidences or artifacts of better detection — they are signals that deserve our full attention.”
He similarly questioned giving hepatitis B shots to infants in a May 2025 video, downplaying the risks of the virus as limited to those engaging in risky sexual activity or sharing needles. While hepatitis B is primarily transmitted through certain risky behaviors, public health experts say infants can still be exposed in other ways, and that giving the shot to newborns has helped curb mother-to-child transmission.
The progressive group Protect Our Care called on Cassidy to block Kaufman’s confirmation.
“There is something very risky here, and it’s letting a science-denier like Mr. Kaufman oversee the nation’s emergency supply of vaccines,” Brad Woodhouse, president of the group, told STAT in a statement.
Kaufman also called offering mRNA Covid-19 vaccines “reckless,” questioning their safety and effectiveness. He praised efforts by Kennedy to rescind universal recommendations for Covid-19 vaccines. “I don’t think it ever should have been [recommended] in the first place,” he said.
In separate LinkedIn posts from two and three years ago that are still public, Kaufman defended individuals who he said were fired from their jobs after rejecting Covid-19 vaccine mandates — it has been previously reported that Kaufman has served as an expert witness in cases opposing vaccine mandates — and said he was censored for promoting “the benefits of natural immunity.”
In one post, he described himself as a “father of three who would rather perish than have any one of his children receive an injection where the risks soundly outweigh the benefits gained,” referring to Covid-19 shots.
Last year, a panel of vaccine experts handpicked by Kennedy voted to recommend that most parents delay giving their children the hepatitis B vaccine, leading to outcry from public health experts who say that the consequences can be devastating and fatal.
That recommendation is currently on hold as a challenge to Kennedy’s vaccine policies makes its way through a federal court. The panel has also raised questions about the safety of mRNA Covid vaccines, and Kennedy has pulled millions of dollars in funding for the technology.