When Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary, he did so with the expectation that he and other serious people would be able to contain the worst impulses of the anti-vaccine activist. Cassidy, a physician and chair of the Senate health committee, said in a floor speech that he believed they could “have a great relationship to make America healthy again,” focused on the parts of Kennedy’s agenda that many found promising: tackling chronic diseases, promoting healthier food and reforming the nation’s health agencies.

That illusion — to the extent that it still existed — was fully shattered late Wednesday. Kennedy’s decision to oust Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over disagreeme

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