Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailGet our free Inside Washington emailHealth and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr sparred with Democratic senators about the mass exodus from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kennedy’s recent actions on vaccines. Kennedy testified before the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, where he defended his recent actions at the department, which includes the National Institutes of Health and the CDC.“If we don’t end this chronic disease, we are the sickest country in the world,” he said. “That’s why we have to fire people at CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy.”Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. sparred with Democrats over his vaccine stances and his efforts leading the Department of Health and Human Services as he appeared before Congress Thursday. (Getty Images)Last week, the Trump administration fired Susan Monarez, whom President Donald Trump had nominated to lead the agency. That triggered a resignation from other top officials at the center. But many Democratic senators criticized him for his lack of understanding about public health and elevating conspiracy theorists.“Republicans on the committee had a chance to prevent the public health train wreck that Mr. Kennedy has engineered,” Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said during the hearing.Before the hearing began, Wyden and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) released a 54-page report about Kennedy’s mismanagement of the department. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who repeatedly grilled Kennedy during his confirmation hearing, criticized Kennedy for dismissing every member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in June.“This is the last thing our parents need, by the way, as kids are going back to school is to have the kind of confusion and expense and scarcity that you are creating as a result of your ideology,” he said. Kennedy in turn shot back and criticized Bennet. “All the evidence is transparent for the first time in history and you were never there complaining when the pharmaceutical companies were picking those people and then running their products with no safety testing,” he said.Kennedy, the son of the late Democratic attorney general and New York senator Robert F. Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy, has long promoted the idea that vaccines cause autism. He also loudly criticized the process for and mandates for the Covid-19 vaccine. Sen. Bill Cassidy, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, criticized Kennedy for not supporting the Covid-19 vaccine with his organization the Children’s Health Defense.
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RFK Jr claims the US is the ‘sickest country in the world’ as he spars with Democrats over vaccines and healthcare
