HHS nominee RFK Jr. does little to assuage Dems on vaccine skepticism during contentious hearing

WASHINGTON (CN) — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., sparred with Senate Democrats on Wednesday as he defended his nomination to head up the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — pushing back on lawmakers who highlighted what they said was the nominee’s long history of vaccine skepticism.

Kennedy, appearing before the Senate Committee on Finance, made a point in his opening statement to push back on months of media reports about his views on vaccinations, telling senators that he is not “anti-vaccine.” But his early assertion did little to assuage concerns from Democrats, some of whom accused him of misrepresenting his views before Congress.

“It’s time to make sure that we blow the whistle on what your views actually are,” Oregon Senator Ron Wyden told the nominee. “At least we’re starting to.”

Kennedy clashed with Wyden and other Democrats over his views on what lawmakers said was the settled science of vaccine efficacy, as well as other controversial statements the would-be HHS secretary has made about the origin and severity of illnesses such as Lyme disease, measles and polio.

Wyden grilled Kennedy on comments the nominee made on a 2023 episode of the Lex Fridman Show podcast, during which he asserted that there are no vaccines that are “safe and effective.” But Kennedy insisted that his comments had been taken out of context and that he has already corrected the record.

“He interrupted me at that point,” Kennedy said of Fridman, the interviewer. “I was going to continue, ‘for every person’ — every medicine has people who are sensitive to them, including vaccines.”

The nominee slammed Wyden for bringing up his comments which he maintained had already been explained.

“You know about this, Senator Wyden, so to bring this up right now is dishonest,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy also pushed back on pointed questions about his participation in a 2021 petition to the Food and Drug Administration aimed at blocking access to the Covid-19 vaccine, arguing that he only brought the petition after the Centers for Disease Control recommended the vaccine for children as young as six.

Experts have largely found that the Covid-19 vaccines remain safe and effective and that vaccinations saved hundreds of thousands of lives during the pandemic.

Kennedy faced further questioning from Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, who accused the nominee of “peddling” half-truths and false statements about vaccines and infectious diseases. The lawmaker demanded Kennedy answer for a laundry list of scientifically inaccurate statements, including comments from 2023 in which the nominee said that Covid-19 was “targeted” at white and Black people while Ashkenazi Jewish people and Chinese people remained immune.

“I didn’t say it was deliberately targeted,” Kennedy replied. He argued that he had been citing a study but did not specify which one or what it concluded.

The nominee also denied that he had made comments about pesticide exposure causing gender dysphoria in children and refused to directly address his stance on whether permitting abortions should be left to the states. He did, however, acknowledge that he had “probably” said that Lyme disease was a biological weapon engineered by the military.

Bennet accused Kennedy of playing fast and loose with the truth.

“It doesn’t matter what you come here and say that isn’t true, that isn’t reflective of what you truly believe, that you haven’t said decade after decade,” he told the nominee. “Because unlike other jobs we’re confirming around this place, this is a job where it is life and death.”

Kennedy, for his part, told lawmakers that he does indeed support some vaccines.

“I support the measles vaccine, I support the polio vaccine,” he said. “I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking them.”

That did little to placate Democrats. “That’s not true,” Wyden responded.

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who was once friends with Kennedy and was his former law school roommate, put a finer point on the discussion around the nominee’s beliefs.

“Americans are going to need to hear a clear and trustworthy recantation of what you have said on vaccinations,” he told Kennedy, adding that any such retraction must include a promise that he will never assert that vaccines aren’t medically safe and that he supports mandatory vaccinations.

“You’re in that hole pretty deep,” Whitehouse said. “Frankly, you frighten people.”

Later on in the hearing, Kennedy appeared to at least partly defend his vaccine skepticism, after North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis asked him whether he considered himself to be a conspiracy theorist.

“That is a pejorative that has been applied to me mainly to keep me from asking difficult questions of powerful interests,” the nominee said, adding that he had been labeled a conspiracy theorist for arguing that Covid-19 vaccines would not prevent the spread of the disease.

Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, is a former environmental lawyer and nonprofit founder. He has long promoted vaccine misinformation as the founder of vaccine-skeptic advocacy group Children’s Health Defense. He stepped away from the organization in 2023 ahead of his ill-fated run for president.

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