It’s been a tumultuous week for U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He and the Trump Administration fired Susan Monarez, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), just a month after she was confirmed, which triggered a series of high-profile resignations within the agency. Days later, nine former CDC leaders called on Kennedy to resign. Underlying this tumult is Kennedy’s vaccine-skeptical agenda, and on Sept. 4, Kennedy defended his controversial actions at HHS during a Senate hearing—in which he also maintained his skepticism about vaccines.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
“When were you lying, Sir: when you told this committee that you were not anti-vax, or when you told Americans that there’s no safe and effective vaccine?” Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, asked Kennedy, referring to a podcast appearance in which he questioned the safety of vaccines.
“Both are true,” he replied.
Kennedy’s time as HHS secretary has been marred with controversy. In June, he fired all of 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), which develops vaccine recommendations for the CDC to consider, and then replaced them with new members, some of whom have expressed skepticism about vaccines. In early August, he canceled $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine development, even though that technology led to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Under his watch, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided to limit approval for COVID-19 shots to adults 65 and older or those at high risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes. And in late August, he fired Monarez, the CDC director, for refusing to rubber-stamp ACIP’s vaccine recommendations in advance, she wrote in her Sept. 4 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
Read More: What We’ve Learned from the Texas Measles Outbreak
Sen. Elizabeth Warren directly asked Kennedy about his interaction with Monarez in the hearing.
“Did you tell the head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, that she had to resign?” Warren said.
“No, I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ and she said, ‘No,’” Kennedy responded.
“So you’re saying she’s lying?” Warren said.
“Yes,” Kennedy replied.
Warren also questioned Kennedy about the FDA’s decision to recommend the updated COVID-19 vaccine only for people 65 or older and children and adults with risk factors for developing severe disease. Those recommendations have caused much confusion, and both CVS and Walgreens have limited access to the vaccines in some states to people with a prescription.
“Last November, while you were under consideration to become Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mr. Kennedy, you said, ‘If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away,’” Warren said. “Then last week, you announced the COVID-19 vaccine is no longer approved for healthy people under the age of 65. Obviously, both things cannot be true at the same moment.”
“Anybody can get the booster,” Kennedy said.
“So you’re saying that is now the official rule of HHS: anybody is eligible to get a booster by just walking into the pharmacy?” Warren asked.
“It’s not recommended for healthy people,” he said. “No.”
Read More: The Clashing Advice Over COVID-19 Shots for Kids
Almost all Republican members of the Senate voted to confirm Kennedy earlier this year. But in the Senate hearing, some challenged Kennedy’s recent actions on vaccines. They included Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana who had said he had “reservations” about Kennedy’s past positions about vaccine safety at the confirmation hearing, but who ultimately supported Kennedy’s nomination.
Cassidy began by saying he believed that President Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership that accelerated the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. He then asked Kennedy if he agreed; Kennedy said he did.
That “surprises me,” Cassidy said. “You canceled—or HHS did, but apparently under your director—$500 million in contracts using the mRNA vaccine platform that was critical to Operation Warp Speed—again, an accomplishment that I think President Trump should get a Nobel Prize for.”
Cassidy also read letters he had received from friends and doctors who expressed concern about the confusion surrounding who was able to get a COVID-19 vaccine. One friend said that his wife, who has Stage IV lung cancer, was unable to get the vaccine at CVS “thanks to the mess at HHS.” Another wrote Cassidy that doctors are confused about who can get the COVID-19 vaccine, and that they are turning to attorneys to get opinions.
“I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines,” Cassidy concluded.
“You’re wrong,” Kennedy said.
Sen. John Barrasso, a physician and Republican from Wyoming, said that he, too, had gotten messages from concerned doctors he used to work with.
“There are real concerns that safe, proven vaccines like measles, like Hepatitis B and others, could be in jeopardy, and that would put Americans at risk and reverse decades of progress,” he said.
Kennedy’s clearest statements about where he stands on vaccines came during an exchange with Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, who questioned one of the new members Kennedy appointed to the vaccine advisory panel, Dr. Retsef Levi. “Are you aware that another one of these new members, Dr. Levi, wrote that ‘Evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm including death, especially among young people’?” Bennet asked.
“I wasn’t aware that he said it, but I agree with it,” Kennedy answered.
It’s not true,” Bennet said. “It wasn’t true when he said it. It’s not true when you said it.”
Thom Tillis, a Republican Senator from North Carolina, brought up the exchange later in the hearing, seemingly surprised that Kennedy so blatantly called into question a technology that had been lauded by President Trump.
“Apparently, in the exchange with Senator Bennet, you said you agreed with Dr. Levi’s statements, who said that the mRNA vaccine causes serious harm, including death, particularly in young people. They said you agreed with that comment. Did you agree with that comment or not?” Tillis asked.
“I think that’s true,” Kennedy confirmed.