5 takeaways from US Health Secretary Kennedy’s Senate hearing

WASHINGTON – Mr Robert F. Kennedy Jr faced tough questions about his tumultuous tenure as Health Secretary during a dramatic hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Sept 4.

During his nearly seven months in office, he has upended the Department of Health and Human Services, overseeing widespread changes to the institutes under his leadership. None has been hit harder than the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recommends vaccines for Americans.

Mr Kennedy, a long-time vaccine sceptic, has undermined immunisations; fired the CDC’s independent advisers on vaccines and replaced them with vaccine critics; and ousted the centre’s director less than a month into the job after she refused to fire top officials and rubber-stamp decisions from the advisers he appointed.

Over three loud and contentious hours, Mr Kennedy was remarkably combative and dismissive with senators, refusing to budge from his stance on vaccines, autism, Medicaid and the CDC.

Here are five takeaways from the hearing:

Both Republicans and Democrats pressed Mr Kennedy on vaccine access

“It’s been obvious from the start that Robert Kennedy’s primary interest is to take vaccines away from Americans,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the committee’s ranking Democrat. “His actions reveal a steadfast commitment to elevating junk science and fringe conspiracies.”

He and other senators pushed Mr Kennedy on the latter’s attempts to restrict access to vaccines. Under Mr Kennedy’s leadership, health officials have narrowed who is eligible for updated Covid-19 vaccines.

Several senators, among them Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, highlighted the obstacles some Americans face in accessing the vaccines. Major pharmacies in some states are currently requiring that even people who are at high risk get prescriptions for the shots.

“Effectively, we’re denying people vaccine,” Mr Cassidy said. He supported Mr Kennedy’s confirmation, despite some misgivings, but has become increasingly critical of him in recent weeks.

Several senators pushed Mr Kennedy on his opposition to mRNA technology – used for the first time in the Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna – asking him to reconcile his criticisms with President Donald Trump’s championing of those vaccines through Operation Warp Speed.

Mr Kennedy has cancelled US$500 million (S$644 million) in mRNA research and falsely claimed the mRNA Covid-19 shots are the “deadliest” vaccines ever made. But during the hearing, he maintained both that Mr Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for his efforts and that mRNA vaccines were harmful.

Senators assailed Mr Kennedy’s firing of all 17 advisers on the CDC vaccine recommendation panel in June.

Mr Kennedy handpicked new members of the committee, several of whom have cast scepticism on vaccines and Covid-19 shots in particular. He plans to appoint seven additional new members to the committee, which is scheduled to meet later in September.

Some senators expressed alarm that the committee may vote to change recommendations on routine childhood immunisations like the hepatitis B vaccine.

Mr Kennedy stood his ground

The hearing was punctuated with heated back-and-forth exchanges, with Mr Kennedy effectively getting into shouting matches with several senators.

He yelled that Democratic senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire was “just making stuff up” after she said he had made it harder for Americans to get vaccines.

Senators read aloud his words from previous hearings, noting that he promised not to take anyone’s vaccines away and that he would empower agency scientists to do their work. Many said he had done neither. Democratic senator Tina Smith of Minnesota said Mr Kennedy made contradictory statements.

“When were you lying, sir?” she 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?”

Mr Kennedy replied: “Both things are true.”

Democratic senator Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico pressed Mr Kennedy to provide protocols for studies meant to find a cause for autism. In a tense exchange, Mr Kennedy claimed not to understand the request. “You’re talking gibberish,” he said to Mr Lujan.

In one contentious exchange with Democratic senator Mark Warner of Virginia, Mr Kennedy said he did not know how many Americans died of Covid-19 or whether the vaccines prevented Covid-19-related deaths.

“The problem is they didn’t have the data,” he added, prompting the senator to reply: “You are sitting as secretary of health and human services. How can you be that ignorant?”

In fact, the data are readily available. Hundreds of reports have tracked the efficacy of the vaccines since they debuted in 2021. The shots have saved millions of lives in the United States and elsewhere, dozens of studies estimated.

Turmoil at CDC is likely to worsen

Since Mr Kennedy took office, the CDC has been in a state of chaos. Thousands of employees were fired, and many others left. The agency was the target of a shooting in August.

Mr Kennedy suggested he was not done with the agency, accusing it of corruption and claiming that it was responsible for the rise of chronic diseases in the US and for Covid-19’s toll on Americans.

“What we’re going to do is reorganise CDC,” he said, adding: “I need to fire some of those people.”

In his opening remarks, he nodded to the shooting outside the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta, but CDC employees have said they were furious that he gave interviews after the incident, in which he called into question their integrity.

The gunman is thought to have been motivated by a belief that the Covid-19 vaccine caused him to be ill. Many CDC employees hold Mr Kennedy directly responsible for such misinformation.

Conflicts of interest were a hot topic

Mr Kennedy has said he fired all the members of the vaccine panel because they had financial conflicts of interest, a claim that has repeatedly been refuted. Members of the panel are carefully vetted for potential conflicts. When members may have indirect conflicts, they recuse themselves from the relevant discussions.

But many of the new members Mr Kennedy appointed to the panel have biases of their own. They include people who have filed court declarations in cases challenging vaccines or mandates.

New members include a doctor who has served as an expert witness on behalf of people who claimed they were harmed by vaccines. Another doctor, in a testimony before state lawmakers, compared Covid-19 vaccines to thalidomide, a drug that decades ago caused serious birth defects.

Rural hospitals and pharmacy benefit managers rounded out the discussion

Concerns about the fate of rural healthcare in the aftermath of Mr Trump’s domestic policy Bill and sweeping cuts to Medicaid surfaced. Republican senators pushed Mr Kennedy to discuss the US$50 billion in funding targeted for hospitals and clinics in rural areas, which have been struggling to stay afloat.

“We’re infusing more than 50 per cent increase in the amount of money that is going to rural communities over the next five years,” Mr Kennedy said.

Senator Bernie Sanders, from Vermont, pushed back, pointing out that the Bill could lead to a net loss of US$100 billion in funding, as millions of Americans would lose their insurance because the programme is being rolled back. Advocates estimate dozens of hospitals could be at risk of closing and many more will cut vital services like labour and delivery.

Mr Kennedy was pushed by Republicans to support bipartisan legislation aimed at better regulating giant pharmacy benefit managers, which are owned by three healthcare conglomerates – CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group.

He assured senators he would support such efforts, noting Mr Trump’s backing, and said he had been in discussions with the companies about reforms.

Senator Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, raised longstanding concerns about rising healthcare costs.

He argued Americans faced an “affordability crisis”. NYTIMES