\n<\/p>\n
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, faced the Senate finance committee in a tense and combative hearing on Thursday during which lawmakers questioned his remarks expressing vaccine skepticism, claims that the scientific community is deeply politicized, and the ongoing turmoil plaguing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).<\/p>\n
In a hearing lasting more than three hours and ostensibly about the Trump administration\u2019s healthcare agenda, Kennedy defended his leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claiming that his time at the agency will be focused on \u201cunbiased, politics-free, transparent, evidence-based science in the public interest\u201d.<\/p>\n
Senate Democrats on the committee began the hearing calling for Kennedy\u2019s resignation. \u201cRobert Kennedy\u2019s primary interest is taking vaccines away from Americans,\u201d ranking member Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon, said in his opening remarks. \u201cPeople are hurt by his reckless disregard for science and the truth in this effort. I hope the very least, Robert Kennedy has the decency to tell the truth this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, Kennedy fired the CDC director, Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed to her position. She is now mounting a legal case challenging her removal.<\/p>\n
Shortly after Monarez\u2019s termination, several leading public health officials at the CDC resigned from their positions, citing frustration with Kennedy\u2019s approach to vaccines and his management style.<\/p>\n
Kennedy defended his decision when probed by lawmakers, claiming that Monarez admitted she was not \u201ctrustworthy\u201d. The Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren was unconvinced with the secretary\u2019s explanation \u2013\u00a0citing his characterization of the former CDC director as \u201cunimpeachable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kennedy said that Monarez was \u201clying\u201d when she said her firing was a result of refusing to sign off on the secretary\u2019s new vaccine policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had full confidence in her and you had full confidence in her scientific credentials, and in a month she became a liar?\u201d Warren asked.<\/p>\n
Kennedy also justified wider firings at the CDC , calling them \u201cabsolutely necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the sickest country in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we need the fire people at CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC\u2019s vaccine advisory committee \u2013 a move that defied a promise he made during his confirmation hearing to Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who chairs the Senate health committee. Many of Kennedy\u2019s replacements for the advisory panel have a history of vaccine skepticism.<\/p>\n
When asked about the changes to the advisory committee, and how that will change the vaccine recommendations and scheduling, Kennedy said he didn\u2019t anticipate changes to the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.<\/p>\n
In an exchange with Kennedy, Cassidy noted the possible conflict of interest with some of the panel\u2019s new members who are involved in ongoing litigation with vaccine manufacturers.<\/p>\n
Cassidy cast a critical vote to confirm Kennedy earlier this year. He had previously expressed a number of concerns about the health secretary\u2019s historic comments that undermined vaccine efficacy. He has since been critical of a number of Kennedy\u2019s policies, including his decision to cut half a billion dollars worth of mRNA vaccine funding \u2013 calling the move \u201cunfortunate\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to This Week in Trumpland<\/span><\/p>\n A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Last month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the new batch of Covid-19 vaccines, but placed restrictions on who would be able to access them. The agency has authorized shots for people 65 and older, who are known to be more at risk from serious illnesses from Covid infections. Younger people will only be eligible if they have an underlying medical condition that makes them vulnerable. Infectious disease experts say that this policy could prove extremely dangerous, particularly for young children.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Kennedy defended HHS\u2019s handling of the measles outbreak that affected several states in an opinion piece. While the secretary branded his agency\u2019s response as effective, public health experts said Kennedy\u2019s own messaging around vaccines was muddied and confusing.<\/p>\n Cassidy concluded his questioning at the hearing by telling Kennedy that his policies were \u201ceffectively denying people the vaccine\u201d, sharing an email from a doctor friend who expressed confusion about Covid inoculation eligibility given the FDA\u2019s new recommendation policies.<\/p>\n Kennedy snapped back: \u201cYou\u2019re wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n The Republican senator John Barrasso, of Wyoming, also a doctor, expressed similar concerns about Kennedy\u2019s policies. \u201cIn your confirmation hearing you promised to uphold the highest standard for vaccines,\u201d Barrasso said. \u201cSince then, I\u2019ve grown deeply concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n Multiple Democrats on the committee had heated exchanges with the health secretary. Many of them pointed out the inconsistency in Kennedy\u2019s recent support for the president\u2019s \u201cOperation Warp Speed\u201d and his disparagement of the Covid-19 shot. He has previously called it the \u201cdeadliest\u201d vaccine ever manufactured.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump has said the vaccine works, and has saved millions of lives. Your own process, on the other hand, has not been transparent,\u201d said the Democratic senator Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire. \u201cYou repeatedly choose to ignore data because it doesn\u2019t match your preconceived notions and lies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, faced the Senate finance committee in a tense and combative hearing on Thursday during which lawmakers questioned his remarks expressing vaccine skepticism, claims that the scientific community is deeply politicized, and the ongoing turmoil plaguing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In a hearing lasting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[2132,3052,11701,452,4818,789,2324,516,1314,9992,78],"class_list":{"0":"post-19100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-cdc","9":"tag-committee","10":"tag-grilled","11":"tag-hearing","12":"tag-kennedy","13":"tag-rfk","14":"tag-robert","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-senate","17":"tag-turmoil","18":"tag-vaccines"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}