Tough Senate Hearing for U.S. Health Secretary

Kennedy Faces Heated Interrogation

The appearance today of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee was, as anticipated, a difficult hearing that erupted in shouting.

Prior to the session, 11 of the 12 Democrats on the Committee had called for Kennedy’s resignation, alleging that he “endangers the lives of all Americans”—a sentiment that remained unchanged during the proceedings.

The questioning quickly turned heated. Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat, Oregon) pressed the secretary when he urged him to explain to “the American people how many preventable child deaths are an acceptable sacrifice to implement an agenda that I consider fundamentally cruel and defying common sense.”

Kennedy shot back at the lawmaker, reminding him that he had remained in office for 25 years “while the incidence of chronic diseases in our children rose to 76 percent, and you said nothing.”

Defense of CDC Director’s Firing

The environmental lawyer turned Health Secretary under the Trump administration defended his recent dismissal of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez. The firing triggered a chain reaction that led to the exodus of several senior officials.

Much of Thursday’s hearing centered on this issue. Monarez had been confirmed and took office only on July 31. At the start of his testimony on Capitol Hill, Kennedy declared that the CDC needs “new blood.”

“We need bold, competent, and creative new leadership at the CDC. People are capable and willing to chart a new course,” he emphasized.

The former CDC director, Kennedy reiterated, was dismissed for refusing to approve vaccine policy guidelines drafted by advisors he had selected, whom he described as vaccine skeptics.

In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal, Monarez wrote that she had been removed for refusing to yield to pressure to “compromise science itself.”

Growing Calls for Resignation

This week, more than 1,000 current and former employees of the Department of Health signed a letter demanding Kennedy’s resignation following Monarez’s ouster.

Since January of this year, the CDC has lost thousands of employees and nearly half of its budget. In March, Kennedy Jr. removed Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator.

At the time, Marks accused the Health Secretary of seeking nothing more than “servile confirmation of his disinformation and lies” about vaccines.

Months later, in June, Kennedy dismissed 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, replacing them with seven carefully chosen allies, including several well-known vaccine skeptics like himself.