HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rejected claims made by the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who said Kennedy asked her to approve vaccine recommendations even if they didn’t align with scientific evidence.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., pointed to a Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Susan Monarez, who was ousted as the CDC director last month. In it, she said she was fired because she “held the line and insisted on rigorous scientific review.”
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“Did you in fact do what Director Monarez said you did, which is tell her to just go along with vaccine recommendations even if she didn’t think such recommendations aligned with scientific evidence?” Wyden asked.
“No, I did not say that to her. And I never had a private meeting with her. There are other witnesses to every meeting that we have and all of those witnesses will say, I never said that,” Kennedy said.
“So she’s lying today to the American people in the Wall Street Journal?” Wyden asked.
“Yes,” Kennedy said.
Later in the hearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also questioned Kennedy about firing Monarez.
When Warren said Monarez refused to sign off on Kennedy’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, the health secretary said she resigned because “I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person,’ and she said no.”
Warren was shocked at Kennedy’s response, saying that was not what Monarez has said publicly. In her column in The Wall Street Jounral, Monarez lambasted Kennedy and his “deliberate effort to weaken America’s public-health system and vaccine protections.”
“So you are saying she’s lying?” Warren asked.
“Yes,” Kennedy said again.
Kennedy appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance a day after more than 20 medical societies and organizations called for his resignation. They cited “repeated efforts to undermine science and public health,” most recently the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez over vaccine science and the resulting resignations of other leaders at the organization.
During his tenure, the health secretary and former anti-vaccine advocate has narrowed long-standing U.S. vaccine recommendations. He’s also replaced a key panel of medical experts with his hand-picked candidates ahead of the start of the respiratory virus season in the United States.
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