{"id":133678,"date":"2025-09-05T02:20:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/133678\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T02:20:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:20:11","slug":"kennedy-tries-to-defend-covid-19-vaccine-stance-in-senate-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/133678\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy tries to defend COVID-19 vaccine stance in Senate hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., facing pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday, tried to defend his efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and explain the turmoil he has created at federal health<\/a> agencies.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said the fired CDC director was untrustworthy, stood by his past anti-vaccine rhetoric, and disputed reports of people saying they have had difficulty getting COVID-19 shots.<\/p>\n

A longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy has made sweeping changes to agencies tasked with public health policy and scientific research by laying off<\/a> thousands of workers, firing science advisers and remaking vaccine guidelines. The moves \u2014 some of which contradict assurances he made during his confirmation hearings<\/a> \u2014 have rattled medical groups<\/a> and officials in several Democratic-led states, which have responded with their own vaccine advice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Medical groups and several Democrats in Congress have called for Kennedy to be fired, and his exchanges with Democratic senators on the panel repeatedly devolved into shouting, from both sides.<\/p>\n

But some Republican senators also expressed unease with his changes to COVID-19 policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The GOP senators noted that Kennedy said President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for the 2020 Operation Warp Speed<\/a> initiative to quickly develop mRNA COVID-19 vaccines \u2014 and that he also had attacked the safety and continued use of those very shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell where you are on Operation Warp Speed,\u201d said Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.<\/p>\n

Tillis and others asked him why the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was fired last week, less than a month into her tenure.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said she was dishonest, and that CDC leaders who left the agency last week in support of her deserved to be fired. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Secretary<\/p>\n

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives to appear before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives to appear before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n

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He also criticized CDC recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic tied to lockdowns and masking policies, and claimed \u2014 wrongly \u2014 that they \u201cfailed to do anything about the disease itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,\u201d Kennedy said. He later said they deserved to be fired for not doing enough to control chronic disease.<\/p>\n

Trump was asked at a White House dinner with tech leaders on Thursday night if he has full confidence in what Kennedy is doing.<\/p>\n

Trump said he didn\u2019t watch the hearings but said of Kennedy, \u201che means very well.\u201d Trump said Kennedy has \u201ca different take, and we want to listen to all those takes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not your standard talk, I would say, and that has to do with medical and vaccines,\u201d Trump said. \u201cBut if you look at what\u2019s going on in the world with health and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he\u2019s different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats express hostility from the start<\/p>\n

The Senate Finance Committee had called Kennedy to a hearing about his plans to \u201cMake America Healthy Again,\u201d but Democratic senators pressed Kennedy on his actions around vaccines. <\/p>\n

At the start of the hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon tried to have Kennedy formally sworn in as a witness, saying the HHS secretary has a history of lying to the committee. The committee\u2019s chair, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, denied the Democrat\u2019s request, saying \u201cthe bottom line is we will let the secretary make his own case.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Committee<\/p>\n

Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, arrives and is seated before Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives to appear before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n

Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, arrives and is seated before Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives to appear before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n

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Wyden went on to attack Kennedy, saying he had \u201cstacked the deck\u201d of a vaccines advisory committee by replacing scientists with \u201cskeptics and conspiracy theorists.\u201d <\/p>\n

Last week, the Trump administration fired<\/a> the CDC\u2019s director \u2014 a Trump appointee who was confirmed by the Senate \u2014 less than a month into her tenure. Several top CDC leaders resigned in protest, leaving the agency in turmoil.<\/p>\n

The ousted director, Susan Monarez, wrote in The Wall Street Journal<\/a> on Thursday that Kennedy was trying to weaken public health protections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,\u201d Monarez wrote. \u201cIt is imperative that the panel\u2019s recommendations aren\u2019t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy told senators he didn\u2019t make such an ultimatum, though he did concede that he had ordered Monarez to fire career CDC scientists. Monarez\u2019s attorneys later responded that she stood by the op-ed and \u201cwould repeat it all under oath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy pushed back on concerns raised by multiple Republican senators, including Tillis and Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Both Barrasso and Cassidy are physicians.<\/p>\n

Shouting matches and hot comebacks<\/p>\n

The health secretary had animated comebacks as Democratic senators pressed him on the effects of his words and actions.<\/p>\n

When Sen. Raphael Warnock, of Georgia, questioned Kennedy about his disparaging rhetoric about CDC employees before a deadly shooting at the agency this summer, Kennedy shot back: \u201cAre you complicit in the assassination attempts on President Trump?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Secretary<\/p>\n

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

Kennedy called Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico \u201cridiculous,\u201d said he was \u201ctalking gibberish\u201d and accused him of \u201cnot understanding how the world works\u201d when Lujan asked Kennedy to pledge to share protocols of any research Kennedy was commissioning into autism and vaccines.<\/p>\n

He also engaged in a heated, loud exchanges with Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t even hear your question,\u201d Kennedy replied to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto as the Nevada Democrat repeatedly asked what the agency was doing to lower drug costs for seniors.<\/p>\n

He also told Sen. Bernie Sanders that the Vermont independent was not \u201cmaking any sense.\u201d <\/p>\n

Some senators had their own choice words.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re interrupting me, and sir, you\u2019re a charlatan. That\u2019s what you are, \u201d said Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat. \u201cThe history on vaccines is very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the hearing neared its end, Kennedy pulled his cellphone from his pocket and then tapped and scrolled as Wyden asked about mifepristone, a drug used for medication abortion.<\/p>\n

Kennedy disputes COVID-19 data<\/p>\n

In May, Kennedy announced COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move opposed by medical and public health groups.<\/p>\n

In June, he abruptly fired<\/a> a panel of experts that had been advising the government on vaccine policy. He replaced them with a handpicked group that included several vaccine skeptics, and then shut the door to several doctors groups that had long helped form the committee\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has voiced distrust of research that showed the COVID-19 vaccines saved lives, and at Thursday\u2019s hearing even cast doubt on statistics about how people died during the pandemic and on estimates about how many deaths were averted \u2014 statistics produced by the agencies he oversees.<\/p>\n

He said federal health policy would be based on gold standard science, but confessed that he wouldn\u2019t necessarily wait for studies to be completed before taking action against, for example, potential causes of chronic illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not waiting for everything to come in. We are starting now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A number of medical groups say Kennedy can\u2019t be counted on to make decisions based on robust medical evidence. In a statement Wednesday, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and 20 other medical and public health organizations issued a joint statement calling on him to resign.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur country needs leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue, not disregard decades of lifesaving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress and decimate programs that keep us safe,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

Many of the nation\u2019s leading public health and medical societies, including the American Medical Association, American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have decried Kennedy\u2019s policies and warn they will drive up rates of vaccine-preventable diseases.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Stobbe reported from New York. Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Michelle L. Price and Chris Megerian contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., facing pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,84185,8634,2797,37002,23715,6883,4000,3505,12,11733,793,962,97,6882,84188,56786,243,84186,3,111,21500,788,48315,9287,84187,8638,21,19,11162,22,20,25,24,800],"class_list":["post-133678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-ben-lujan","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-bill-cassidy","tag-catherine-cortez-masto","tag-centers-for-disease-control-and-prevention","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-elizabeth-warren","tag-general-news","tag-government-policy","tag-health","tag-immunizations","tag-john-barrasso","tag-maria-cantwell","tag-medication","tag-mike-crapo","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-raphael-warnock","tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","tag-ron-wyden","tag-thom-tillis","tag-tina-smith","tag-u-s-democratic-party","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-united-states-senate","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}