After the phenomenal success of Operation Warp Speed in developing and deploying vaccines against COVID 19, chaos has enveloped medical research in America and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Such was the subject of a chaotic, contentious Senate Finance committee hearing on Thursday.
Secretary of Health & Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vaccine skeptic who embraces conspiracy theories, clashed with senators of both parties over canceled research grants, firings, and restrictions imposed on access to vaccines. Rare for a Cabinet secretary, Kennedy treated lawmakers, including Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., with open contempt.
Cantwell sharply questioned RFK, Jr., over cancellation of $500 million in grants on vaccine research for deployment of mRNA technology. In her words, “to be ready for the next pandemic, the next pandemic.”
Kennedy shot back, “You’re so wrong on your facts.” He offered no supporting evidence.
“You’re interrupting me, sir, and you are a charlatan, that’s what you are,” said Cantwell. “You’re the ones who conflated chronic disease with the need for vaccines.”
She noted that the governors of Washington, Oregon and California, on Wednesday, announced a West Coast Health Alliance to “take up the efficacy of science” and offer immunization guidance. “The University of Washington will deliver the science that Americans will depend on because you don’t want to depend on it,” Cantwell told the HHS Secretary.
The second Trump Administration has politicized science, along with so much in American society. And there is confusion, with the President and Kennedy casting suspicion on the single great achievement of the first Trump Administration— rapid development of the COVID 19 vaccine.
On Wednesday, Florida became the first state to lift all vaccine requirements including those for school children. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? Your body is a gift from God,” declared Dr. Joseph Ladapo, surgeon general in the Sunshine State.
Kennedy charged Thursday that the CDC has been in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. He described the CDC — without any supporting evidence — as “the most corrupt agency in HHS and perhaps the government,” and declared: “We’re being lied to by these agencies and we’re going to change that right now.”
The chaos is taking a toll. Kennedy fired CDC director Dr. Susan Monarez after a month on the job. He had earlier dismissed all 17 members of the disease experts on CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. They were replaced largely by vaccine skeptics. Explaining his actions, Kennedy told senators, “”We have the sickest country in the world. That is why we had to fire people at CDC.”
“Scientists and doctors across the country are supporting me,” RFK, Jr. added. But 1,000 current and former federal health professionals yesterday issued a blistering denunciation of Kennedy and called for his immediate resignation. So did a caucus of Democratic doctors in the House including Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash, a pediatrician.
There are signs of a human toll. The rapid introduction of CIVID 19 vaccines saved an estimated 3 million American lives after one million Americans succumbed to the virus. But as noted by Sen. Ralph Warnock, D-Georgia, “for the first time in two decades, we are seeing child deaths from measles.”
A quartet of Republican doctors in the Senate, who cast votes to confirm Kennedy, were critical. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, noted Kennedy’s claim not to be an anti-vaxxer but that he has sowed doubt about the life saving COVID 19 vaccines. And he noted that new appointees to the advisory panel include “paid witnesses for vaccine deniers” in court litigation.
“Americans don’t know whom to rely on,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming. “You’re undermining the whole health care delivery system,” Cantwell told the health secretary.
The Northwest has seen much of RFK, Jr., in recent years. As an environmentalist, he joined anti-logging protests in British Columbia. And was carried ashore in a canoe on Meares Island In Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island. He told a Seattle news conference that the George W. Bush campaign likely stole Ohio in the 2005 presidential election.
He last came to Washington to testify for anti-vaxxers when the Legislature was strengthening vaccine requirements for school children. There was, at the time, a measles outbreak among unvaccinated kids in Clark County.
To the consternation of his kinfolk and siblings, RFK, Jr., cast his lot with Trump in last year’s campaign. Trump is known to like chaos. Kennedy is creating it.
In Cantwell’s words, “You are taking away technology . . . that has saved millions of lives.”
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Thank you, Joel, for your piece on RFK, Jr’s outrageous remarks and conduct during today’s Senate Finance Committee. I would normally think they were unbelievable but during his tenure as HHS Secretary and with about everything involved with the Trump Administration, the unbelievable has become the unfortunate believable.