Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. appeared on Capitol Hill, where he called the ousted director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a liar.
The health agency has been in turmoil after former Director Susan Monarez was removed after just weeks on the job, as she pushed back against Kennedy, a known vaccine skeptic, over vaccines.
After she was pushed out, at least four other leaders at the CDC quit in protest, with some publicly sounding the alarms that the secretary was not following the science.
Ranking Member Ron Wyden brought up the chaos at the CDC during his questioning of Kennedy.
He read from an op-ed by the former CDC director, published on Thursday morning in The Wall Street Journal. In it, she wrote she was fired after just 29 days on the job for holding the line and pushing back over vaccines.
“I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,” wrote Monarez, noting the panel’s next meeting is later this month.
“It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected,” she added.
Wyden submitted the op-ed for the record while blasting Kennedy. The senator said he believed Kennedy was dead set on making it harder for children to get vaccines, and kids would die because of it.
“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?”
“No, I did not say that to her,” Kennedy responded.
The secretary also claimed he never had a private meeting with her. He argued there were witnesses, and they would say he did not say it.
“So she’s lying today to the American people in the Wall Street Journal?” Wyden asked.
“Yes, sir,” Kennedy said.
“I was fired for holding that line. But the line doesn’t disappear with me. It runs through every parent deciding whether to vaccinate a child, every physician counseling patients, and every American who demands accountability,” Monarez wrote. “If we stay silent, preventable diseases will return—as we saw with the largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years, which tragically killed two children. If we act, the facts can still prevail.”
Her exit from the agency came after other mass firings at the agency earlier this year. Kennedy claimed on Thursday that there were firings at the CDC in response to the U.S. being the “sickest” country in the world.
Kennedy also insisted changes were needed to restore the agency to being the world’s gold standard public health agency. Still, numerous experts have sounded the alarm that Kennedy’s actions have done the opposite.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which makes recommendations on vaccines, is set to meet in two weeks. Earlier this year, Kennedy fired all 17 people on the committee.
Wyden accused Kennedy of stacking the panel with people who would bend to his views, calling the replacements vaccine skeptics and conspiracy theorists. He warned that the panel has lost scientific credibility.
The Oregon lawmaker brought up the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) warning that the panel is being politicized.
Asked if he believed AAP was lying, too, Kennedy accused the association of being “gravely conflicted” and he would not put a big stake in what it says.
The lawmaker argued that scientists and doctors around the country are saying Kennedy politicized the vaccine recommendation board.
“They’re all lying, according to you?” Wyden asked.
“Scientists and doctors are supporting me all over the country. There is division on opinion,” Kennedy shot back.
Kennedy’s appearance before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday was often hostile as he clashed with both Democratic and even Republican senators like Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician.
Before the questioning got underway, Wyden accused Kennedy of lying to senators and asked that he be formally sworn in, but Chairman Mike Crapo rejected his request.
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