Senators Challenge RFK Jr. at Incendiary Senate Finance Committee Hearing

In the midst of the turmoil unfolding at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on Thursday, September 4, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went up to Capitol Hill to appear before members of the Senate Finance Committee, one of the key committees overseeing healthcare policy issues inside the U.S. Congress. He was met with exceptionally strong challenges from both Democratic and Republican senators, some of whom are calling on him to resign over vaccine policy and management issues. No specific questions were resolved, and Secretary Kennedy pushed back forcefully against his challengers from both parties; but the policy and management issues facing the CDC and its umbrella agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), remain exceptionally volatile in the moment. Also on Thursday, Susan Monarez, Ph.D., published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal accusing Secretary Kennedy of sabotaging coherent vaccine policy.

The strong words confronting Kennedy came from Republican as well as Democratic senators on Thursday, a fact that The Hill’s Alexander Bolton highlighted in his report on Friday, which was headlined “GOP Senators signal to Trump that Kennedy is on thin ice.” As Bolton put it, “Republican senators are sending clear signs of disapproval and unhappiness with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., making it plain to President Trump that they want the administration to address the chaos Kennedy has caused by trying to rewrite the nation’s vaccine policies. GOP senators have stopped short of calling on Kennedy to resign and haven’t yet said they regret voting for him in February, but they want him to back off efforts to change vaccine policy recommendations without sound scientific backing as the administration faces a growing public backlash,” Bolton wrote.

He went on to note that “Kennedy received an unusual admonishment from Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), an orthopedic surgeon, when he testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. ‘I support vaccines. I’m a doctor. Vaccines work,’ said Barrasso, the Senate’s No. 2-ranking Republican leader. ‘Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,’ he said. ‘Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.’ Barrasso pointed to a national measles outbreak, the sudden ouster of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, and questions raised by the leadership of the National Institutes of Health over mRNA vaccines as raising troubling questions. ‘Americans don’t know who to rely on,’ he said. ‘If we’re going to make America healthy again, we can’t allow public health to be undermined.”

Further, Bolton wrote, “Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who attended the hearing, said Kennedy’s policy changes have made it tougher for people to get vaccines. He read aloud a social media post by conservative commentator Erick Erickson, who said his wife, who was diagnosed with cancer, couldn’t get a vaccine at CVS. ‘I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines,’ Cassidy bluntly told Kennedy.”

Even before any senators were able to question him, Kennedy proactively defended his firing of Susan Monarez, saying that ““These changes were absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world’s gold standard public health agency.” He repeated his long-standing criticism that the agency “failed miserably” during the covid pandemic and pushed “nonsensical policies” that “destroyed small businesses, violated civil liberties, closed our schools, caused generational damage in doing so, masked infants with no science and heightened economic inequality.”

One of the most heated of many heated exchanges took place between Kennedy and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who questioned Kennedy intensively over why he had fired Dr. Monarez as CDC Director last week. Challenged directly to explain what had happened, Kennedy said, “I asked her, are you a trustworthy person? And she said 'no.’” "So you're saying she's lying," said Warren. "She's lying," Kennedy said. Kennedy also told Oregon Senator Ron Wyden he never asked Monarez to pre-approve anything, directly contradicting Monarez’s statements last week that Kennedy had pressured her to sign onto a set of policies making it difficult to obtain vaccines, and dismissing the science behind vaccines.

Monarez directly challenged Kennedy’s account of her firing in her Wall Street Journal op-ed published Thursday morning, writing that, “Just as we began to recover” from a violent gunman’s attack on the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters building on August 8, “I was confronted with another challenge—pressure to compromise science itself. Reporters have focused on the Aug. 25 meeting where my boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., pressured me to resign or face termination. But that meeting revealed that it wasn’t about one person or my job. It was one of the more public aspects of a deliberate effort to weaken America’s public-health system and vaccine protections. I’m gone now, but that effort continues. One of the troubling directives from that meeting more than a week ago: I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric. That panel’s next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 18-19. It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.”

Monarez, who holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, went on to state that, “For three decades, I have worked at the intersection of public health, science and technology innovation—always challenging the status quo and welcoming discovery and change. Real science evolves with evidence. As President Trump recently wrote on social media: ‘It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs. Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives.’ Mr. Trump is right to call for proof. We should always demand evidence—exactly what I was doing when I insisted all CDC recommendations be based on credible data, not ideology or preordained outcomes,” she wrote, adding that “The CDC can’t fulfill its obligation to the American people if its leader can’t demand proof in decision-making. If discarding evidence for ideology becomes the norm, why should parents, physicians or the public trust the CDC’s guidance?” Above all, she wrote in the WSJ, “Public health shouldn’t be partisan. Vaccines have saved millions of lives under administrations of both parties. Parents deserve a CDC they can trust to put children above politics, evidence above ideology and facts above fear. 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.”

During Thursday’s hearing, several Democratic senators called on Kennedy to resign.  And they addressed Kennedy directly on what they saw as his failings. For example, Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia stated, “Secretary Kennedy, for the first time, we’re seeing deaths from measles; we haven’t seen that in two decades. We’re seeing that under your watch; you are a hazard to the health of the American people.”

Senator Mark Warner charged directly at Kennedy, asking him, “Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID?” “I don’t know how many died,” Kennedy said. “You’re the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You don’t have any idea of how many Americans died from COVID?” “I don’t think anybody knows.”  (In fact, more than 1.2 million Americans have died of COVID, and the statistics are widely available.) “This is the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional deaths?” Warner said. Kennedy replied, “I would like to see the data and talk about the data.” Warner shot back: “You have been in this job for eight months, and you don’t know the data about whether the vaccine saved lives?” “No, and that’s the problem,” Kennedy replied. “The data by the Biden administration was absolutely dismal.”

More than 20 Democratic senators have called on Secretary Kennedy to resign; some did so during Thursday’s hearing, while others had already done so last week after the Monarez firing and the departures of four of her deputies in protest of her firing.

But it wasn’t just the issue of the Monarez firing and the senior CDC leaders’ departures that was in high focus in Thursday’s hearing. Senators from both parties noted to Kennedy that they’re hearing from constituents who are unable to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine because of the CDC’s just-released guidance guaranteeing access to the vaccine only to those 65 and older or with one of a list of health-compromising conditions.

As the Washington Post’s David Ovalle, Rachel Roubein, Lauren Weber, and Lena H. Sun wrote on Thursday, “Last week, the Food and Drug Administration narrowed approval of updated coronavirus vaccines to high-risk groups. Kennedy has said the shots will be available ‘for all patients who choose them’ after consultation with their doctor. But physicians and major medical associations say the reality on the ground is far more complicated.” During the hearing, “Kennedy disputed accounts from multiple senators that Americans are facing challenges obtaining the new coronavirus vaccines. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) accused Kennedy’s health department of effectively denying Americans the coronavirus vaccine, citing confusion among patients and doctors over who can get the vaccine. Cassidy read aloud examples of those who are either confused about the vaccine or have been unable to get one at a pharmacy, including conservative commentator Erick Erickson’s wife, who has Stage 4 lung cancer.”  “I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines,” said Cassidy, who is a doctor. “You’re wrong,” Kennedy responded.

The Post reporters noted that, during the hearing, “Some Republican senators did not shy away from pressing Kennedy on the issue of vaccines, which still enjoy a broad measure of support among the public. For example, a Washington Post-KFF poll conducted in July and August showed parents of all political backgrounds overwhelmingly support school vaccination requirements.” And they quoted Senator Barrasso, who said,  “I’m a doctor. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”

In an interview Thursday evening on MSNBC on the program “The Briefing,” host Jen Psaki interviewed Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire. Senator Hassan, who was one of the senators who earlier in the day had engaged in tough questioning of Kennedy, told Psaki that, “Once again, he showed that he is a real danger to the health and safety of Americans all across the country. What he did again and again and again was obfuscate, spin, lie. We saw why I opposed his nomination, and why I and other colleagues have called for his resignation.” Further, Hassan said, “People are really concerned that he’s fired the CDC Director. When we called him on that, he accused her of being untrustworthy. And it is fine to question science, questioning is foundation to science. But that isn’t what Secretary Kennedy is about; I presented him with multiple studies that found that the COVID-19 vaccine saved 3 million lives; he dismissed that study. According to the senior leaders at CDC who have resigned, they’ve offered to brief him, and he’s declined to be briefed.”

Per that, Demetre Daskalakis, M.D., M.P.H., who until last week had been Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), but who resigned along with three other senior CDC officials, after Dr. Monarez was fired by Kennedy, confirmed Senator Hassan’s account, asserting that he had offered to brief Kennedy multiple times, but was repeatedly rebuffed and had never been given the opportunity to brief the Secretary, a process that had been absolutely standard in the past.

States take opposite approaches to vaccine policy

The fireworks in the Senate Finance Committee hearing pointed out the intense opposition in Congress and in the public that Kennedy’s policy and personnel moves have been creating; at the same time, state leaders are going their separate, and in many cases, opposite directions.

As we reported on Wednesday, “As Kirby Wilson and Romy Ellenbogen of the Tampa Bay Times reported, ‘Florida is set to end all state vaccine mandates, state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced at a news conference Wednesday. For decades, the state has required numerous vaccines for kids attending school, including shots that protect against Measles-mumps-rubella, polio, chickenpox and Hepatitis B. But Ladapo on Wednesday compared these mandates to ‘slavery,’ and promised that they all will soon end. He did not immediately provide specifics. Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives in the last 50 years, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of the lives saved were infants. Until recently, the DeSantis administration’s criticism of vaccines had been reserved for COVID-19 shots. In 2022, against the recommendation of American Academy of Pediatrics, Ladapo’s Department of Health recommended health children not take mRNA COVID vaccines. The department has since recommended against the shots for all populations,’ they wrote.”

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast of the country, Emily Baumgaertner Nunn of the New York Times reported on Wednesday that “Three Democratic-controlled West Coast states announced plans on Wednesday to form a ‘health alliance’ that would review scientific data and make vaccine recommendations for their residents, saying that the federal agency responsible for issuing such guidance for the country had become ‘a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science.’ The move, which comes at a time of unparalleled turmoil at the agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is an effort by California, Oregon and Washington to take scientific stewardship into their own hands after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, has taken control of the C.D.C.’s vaccine decisions. Other states, including several in the Northeast, are considering joining in a similar effort,” Baumgeartner Nunn noted.

Massachusetts’ bold move

One governor who has taken immediate action is Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts. As the Boston Globe’s Jason Laughlin and Katarina Schmeiszer reported on Friday morning, “Massachusetts became the first state in the country Thursday to require insurers to cover the cost of COVID shots and other inoculations recommended by state health officials, in another move to counter the Trump administration’s efforts to undo the long national consensus on vaccines. The rift was prompted by new federal limitations on who should receive COVID vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that have created confusion among consumers, pharmacies, and physicians and made it difficult for even those with demonstrated need to get booster shots.”

“In Massachusetts, we will not let Donald Trump or Robert Kennedy get in the way of patients and the care and the treatments and the medication that they want and need,” Governor Healey said Thursday. “No one in the great state of Massachusetts is going to be denied because of cost.”

As the Globe reporters noted, “In late August, the Food and Drug Administration changed its guidance on COVID shots to limit them to people age 65 and older, or to those with a medical condition that puts them at serious risk if they contract the disease. That could prevent millions of healthy people under age 65 from getting a shot without intervention from a doctor. But delays in the annual recommendations from another health agency under Kennedy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mean even those populations are having trouble finding doses.”

Further, the Globe reporters noted, “The insurance mandate in Massachusetts follows the Healey administration’s order Wednesday that essentially authorized COVID booster shots for everyone in Massachusetts age 5 and older. Also, Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein now has the power to determine which vaccines pharmacists can administer in Massachusetts, regardless of the guidance coming out of Washington. Officials said the state-level authority would resolve concerns that led CVS Health to initially not offer COVID shots in Massachusetts and some other states this season because of the limitations recommended by the federal government.”