Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said he has confidence that new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Erica Schwartz will stand up for science and won't enforce President Trump's executive order calling for major changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. 

"I anticipate Erica Schwartz will do the right thing," Cassidy, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday. "She made a point that her integrity was not in question, and she's got the spine of somebody who's been a senior officer in the Coast Guard." 

Schwartz was officially sworn in as CDC director on Thursday, following her confirmation last week, and she is already facing her first serious test. 

Trump's executive order on Monday called for slashing the overall number of recommended vaccines for children from 18 to 11 and splitting up the measles, mumps and rubella shot into three separate vaccines. 

Cassidy, a physician who lost his primary election to a Trump-backed challenger, said the executive order was "bad policy on multiple levels" and was being driven by ideology instead of science. 

"People just out there undermining faith in immunizations is going to lead to fewer people being immunized, which means that the illness, the death associated with that undermining trust, is upon the people who actually promulgated this," Cassidy said, in a veiled swipe at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  

Public health advocates are waiting to see how Schwartz responds to the order.  

Schwartz is the second Senate-confirmed CDC director since Trump took office. The agency's first director during Trump's second term was Susan Monarez, who was fired less than a month into the job after what she described as a clash with Kennedy over his attempts to roll back childhood vaccines.  

The agency had been without a permanent director since then. 

Vaccine recommendations are usually written by an independent panel of experts after reviewing medical evidence, and an executive order doesn't have the authority of law.  

The federal government also does not mandate vaccines; that power belongs to states, but the vaccine schedule helps influence state policies and guide which vaccines are covered by insurance.  

Schwartz, the deputy surgeon general in the first Trump administration and a former top Coast Guard health official, has publicly supported childhood vaccines and was viewed as a highly qualified, mainstream choice who could bring stability back to the CDC.  

But Democrats during her confirmation hearing last month expressed serious doubts about her willingness and ability to push back against Kennedy's policies and stand up for science.   

Even Cassidy seemed to have concerns about Schwartz, who largely sidestepped questions on the issue. Cassidy decided to support her nomination after a page on the CDC's website about vaccines and autism was modified to address his objections.  

"I'm confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not," Cassidy said at the time.     

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