Fresh off the internal collapse of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s senior leadership, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. There, Kennedy deflected and denied any harmful impacts from the CDC’s implosion, while repeatedly spouting misinformation about vaccines and other health issues.
The hearing comes after much of the CDC’s leadership resigned or were fired in last week. Former CDC director Susan Monarez was fired on Tuesday for reportedly refusing to support Kennedy’s vaccine agenda without review, and specifically, to follow the recommendations issued by an influential but independent vaccine advisory panel—the same panel that Kennedy recently purged and restocked with people who have criticized or voiced skepticism toward vaccines before.
Deflection and denial
Kennedy, in both an opening statement and subsequent responses to Senate Finance Committee members, appeared to minimize the fallout from what happened at the CDC. He instead argued that the agency’s track record, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, merited a kind of reset, adding that it was “absolutely necessary” to wipe the slate clean.
“We are the sickest country in the world. That’s why we have to fire people at the CDC,” Kennedy said.
It’s worth noting, of course, that U.S. President Donald Trump oversaw the country’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which included the record-setting development and rollout of mRNA vaccines to combat the virus. At the same time, the Trump administration often ignored and undermined the CDC during that first year.
On the firing of Monarez, Kennedy implied that she was untrustworthy, rather than that she had refused to support his vaccine agenda.
Kennedy also rebuffed criticisms of the remade vaccine advisory panel.
Senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) noted that several of Kennedy’s picks received money from testifying in vaccine-related lawsuits, arguing that this history should be seen as a financial conflict of interest—the same rationale used by Kennedy to dismiss the old ACIP members. Kennedy disagreed entirely, instead claiming that this was merely evidence of them possibly having a bias.
RFK Jr.’s fuzzy math
Among the more egregious moments in the hearing happened during questioning by Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia). When pressed to acknowledge that at least one million Americans died from COVID-19, Kennedy said in a heated exchange with Warner that he didn’t know many Americans died from COVID-19.
“I don’t think anybody knows that,” Kennedy stated.
There are slightly varying estimates of the total deaths caused by the pandemic, but we know that the pandemic caused the deaths of more than 1.2 million Americans, and that figure is based on documented and confirmed COVID-19 fatalities.
Kennedy also claimed to not know how many lives were saved from the COVID-19 vaccines, another common talking point of the anti-vaccination movement. But numerous studies have shown that COVID-19 vaccination saved at least millions of lives in the U.S. and worldwide, and that the vaccines are safe and effective. And Kennedy’s suggestion that vaccine makers didn’t produce a study showing the COVID-19 jab was suitable for healthy children is also incorrect, as those studies have been done.
Vaccine skepticism at the fore
At one point in the hearing, Kennedy stated that he agreed with his handpicked ACIP member Retsef Levi’s argument that the mRNA covid-19 vaccines caused serious harm, including death, to Americans, especially young people. While no vaccine or drug is without its side effects, the vast majority of studies have reaffirmed the overall safety of these vaccines, and that their overall benefits outweigh the risks.
Later, Senator Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) asked Kennedy if he was lying when he told Senators before his confirmation as health secretary that he wasn’t “anti-vax.”
“When were you lying, sir?” Smith said. “When you told this committee that you were not anti-vax? Or when you told Americans that there’s no safe and effective vaccine?”
“Both things are true,” Kennedy responded.
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