Shamita Basu

Tell me a little bit more about how he came to hold these views about vaccines and how he's implementing those views at HHS.

Sure, of course.

And it intersects with the personal and personal decision making, personal autonomy to making decisions for your own family, which clearly when Kennedy talks about that as an issue is very important to so many people.

It was really resonating with a lot of Americans, this idea of I should have the autonomy to choose what's best for my family rather than have it dictated.

I mean, you spoke to Dr. Paul Offit for this piece.

He is a person who Kennedy has often criticized.

I should say he's a doctor.

He's a pediatrician.

He's an infectious disease expert and a public health expert who talks a lot about the policymaking behind a lot of these decisions.

He's been very critical of Kennedy.

What did he have to say to you, though, about this conversation about vaccines specifically?

I mean, you write about how Kennedy seems to take personal interest in topics and then want to read as much as he can about them.

It seems like the Tylenol announcement might be one example of a case like that, right, where Kennedy got very interested in the suggestion that Tylenol might have any connection to autism and

And in the piece, you talk a little bit about how that announcement sort of unfolded, where Kennedy stood by President Trump as Trump told pregnant women not to take Tylenol because of unproven links to autism.

The way that the president characterized it was as if there is, in fact, a proven link.

To me, this story tells me something about how Kennedy operates versus how Trump operates, for one, but also how public health messaging operates.

really works in this country?

What were you kind of pulling out of this?

He likes to say, don't trust me even, right?

Were you able to glean how Kennedy felt about how that announcement went?