"Crazy Talk": RFK Jr, US Senators Spar Over Covid Vaccines In Fiery Hearing

Robert F Kennedy Jr, head of US Health and Human Services, batted away critics who questioned his moves to restrict vaccine access during a fiery Senate hearing Thursday by saying they're lying or conflicted because of ties to pharmaceutical companies.

"I made it clear to the American people they were about to witness a once-in-a-generation shift in health care and public health policy," Kennedy told the Senate Finance Committee, before detailing moves that included overhauling a key vaccine advisory panel and slashing US financial support for global immunization efforts.

Many of his changes were criticised during the hearing by Democrats and some Republicans. Questions quickly turned hostile as Kennedy repeatedly told senators they were wrong as he was grilled about his vaccine policies and his abrupt decision to fire the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director after just a few weeks on the job.

At times the room veered into yelling as senators repeated their lines of inquiry, contradicted Kennedy's statements and presented data that the health secretary openly questioned or refuted.

"This is crazy talk," Kennedy told Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat from New Hampshire, after she asked why access to Covid vaccines was quietly withdrawn for healthy American children. "You are just making stuff up, senator. You're just making stuff up."

Noting that the shots that saved millions of lives are no longer approved and recommended for all Americans, Hassan retorted: "Sometimes when you make an accusation, it's kind of a confession, Mr. Kennedy."

Earlier Thursday, the ousted CDC director Susan Monarez detailed her removal from the job to illuminate how Kennedy was operating behind the scenes, saying in an opinion piece that he asked her to preapprove all recommendations from his hand-picked vaccine panel, a request she called "a deliberate effort to weaken America's public-health system and vaccine protections." When Kennedy fired all the members of the CDC's key advisory panel, he installed some new members with fringe, anti-vaccine views.

"Once trusted experts are removed and advisory bodies are stacked, the results are predetermined. That isn't reform. It is sabotage," Monarez wrote in the Wall Street Journal. 

When asked about her comments, Kennedy said Monarez was lying and claimed he fired her because she admitted she was untrustworthy. He called the departures of top CDC officials "absolutely necessary adjustments" to restore the agency's credibility.

Kennedy's claims are "false, at times, patently ridiculous," Monarez's lawyers said in a statement after the hearing ended.

Chronic Disease

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon called Kennedy's health policies "fundamentally cruel" and said they "defy common sense." Kennedy is "dead set" against children getting vaccines, Wyden said, adding that they will "die as a result."

Protesters also showed up for the hearing, with several in lab coats that featured calls for Kennedy's firing. A woman in a wheelchair yelled at him down the hall, saying "you're killing millions of people."

Kennedy doubled down on his refrain that he's attacking a chronic disease crisis that has spiraled over the past few decades. In response to Wyden, he said chronic diseases have increased in children "and you said nothing. You never asked the question why is it happening?"

"It's chronic disease that is bankrupting us and destroying our national security," Kennedy said in response to a question about US health care spending.

In that, he has the support of the White House. The hearing "showed exactly why President Trump put Secretary Kennedy in charge of HHS: to fix this broken system that has overseen America's unprecedented chronic disease crisis," White House spokesman Kush Desai said. 

The sparring came amid emerging evidence of broad support for childhood vaccines nationwide, even among voters who supported President Donald Trump, according to a Republican pollster who briefed congressional staff on the findings. Massachusetts is forming a coalition of Northeast states to issue vaccine recommendations, part of a broader push to ensure access to immunizations.

The widespread backing of immunizations may have contributed to the fracturing of Kennedy's support among Republican senators. Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis, who both voted to confirm Kennedy in February, questioned his views on vaccines and handling of the CDC.

Tillis of North Carolina pointedly asked Kennedy how he could go from supporting Monarez as leader of the CDC, saying she was "a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials," to firing her in just four weeks.

Still, Republicans appear wary of risking Trump's wrath and some joined forces with Kennedy to criticize the health agencies he now leads. Science in the US has been corrupted, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said, discussing a study from 2000 that he said showed vaccinated people are more prone to chronic illness. 

"It happens all the time," Kennedy said in response. "We are being lied to by these agencies and we are going to change that right now."

Broken Promises

Cassidy, who had struggled over Kennedy's nomination due to his vaccine views, acquiesced after the environmental lawyer who had previously tied measles shots to autism promised to allow the senator to weigh in on vaccine and hiring decisions. Cassidy said he would have an "unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship" with the secretary and touted commitments that he wouldn't interfere with the vaccine advisory panel.

Kennedy then slashed the HHS staff, gutted the panel and replaced its members with vaccine critics, and changed immunization recommendations. If there are going to be consequences for Kennedy breaking his promise, Cassidy gave no sign of what they would be.

He pressed Kennedy on how he could claim support for Trump's Warp Speed program after he "engaged in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the Covid vaccine" while he was lead attorney for a group arguing against the shots.

It's not just senators who are pushing back. More than 20 public health agencies called for Kennedy's resignation, saying he's undermining science and public health, and eight medical societies including the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians called for Congress to step up oversight.

The groups, who are typically apolitical, said the upheaval under Kennedy is putting lives at risk. The US is issuing vaccine recommendations "counter to the best-available evidence," the medical societies said. "We are gravely concerned that American people will needlessly suffer and die as a result of policies that turn away from sound interventions," the public health agencies said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)