Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was unrepentant Thursday about his shakeup of the nation’s public health agency and overhaul of federal vaccine policy, accusing a departed director and top medical organizations of lying. Kennedy, testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, said he fired former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez because the agency desperately needed change. He was defiant even in the face of criticism from some Republicans on the panel who questioned his moves. “It’s imperative that we remove officials with conflicts of interest and catastrophically bad judgment and political agendas,” Kennedy said. The hearing Thursday was the first time Congress has publicly heard from Kennedy amid some tumultuous weeks at the CDC, including the complete overhaul of the agency’s vaccine advisory committee, Kennedy’s firing of Monarez, the departure of other highly ranked agency officials and a shooting at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta. The highly contentious hearing found Kennedy on defense and often flustered, not just from questioning by Democrats but by senators who voted to confirm him, including Bill Cassidy, R-La., John Barrasso, R-Wyo. and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. Kennedy disputed Monarez’s characterization of her four-week tenure at the agency, in which she said she was asked to ratify vaccine recommendations from an advisory panel full of people who have disparaged vaccines. “I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,” Monarez wrote in an op-ed published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. “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.” She added that she was asked by Kennedy to resign, or be terminated, at an Aug. 25 meeting. Kennedy told senators Thursday that Monarez lied. “I did not say that to her, and I never had a private meeting with her,” said Kennedy in one of his few statements about Monarez. He said he wanted her resignation because he asked her, "Are you a trustworthy person? And she said, 'No,'" a claim that drew disbelief from many Democrats on the panel. He conceded he did ask her to fire some CDC career staff, which she refused to do. Vaccine availability Cassidy, who publicly wrestled with whether to support Kennedy’s nomination, said the secretary’s decisions are making it more difficult for people to access vaccines. That includes the Food and Drug Administration recently limiting COVID-19 shots to adults 65 or older or who have medical conditions that put them at higher risk for serious illness. “I would say, effectively, we're denying people vaccines,” Cassidy said, reading letters from people that said they can no longer access COVID-19 shots in their states. “You’re wrong,” Kennedy replied, adding that “anyone can get the booster.” But the reality is playing out differently. Both Walgreens and CVS are pulling back access to COVID-19 vaccines this fall and during winter respiratory virus season. CVS stopped offering the shots in three states and is restricting access in 11 other states and the District of Columbia. Walgreens is planning to similarly limit shots, but has not said which states will be impacted. In response, some states plan to circumvent the Trump administration’s CDC and release their own vaccine guidance. California, Oregon and Washington announced plans on Wednesday to form a West Coast health alliance that will review scientific data and make health recommendations for their residents, saying that they could no longer trust the CDC. Some northeastern states are reportedly considering doing the same. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., accused Kennedy of breaking a promise not to reduce vaccine availability. “I’m not taking them away. Anybody can get access to them,” Kennedy said, but he eventually conceded that “it depends on the state” and that “We’re not going to recommend a product for which there’s no clinical data for that indication. Is that what I should be doing?” “What you should be doing is honoring your promise that you made when you were looking to get confirmed in this job,” Warren said. Advisory panel Kennedy appeared emboldened in his defense of his vaccine views, making statements he previously skirted in his confirmation hearing months ago. He claimed that pharmaceutical companies have rammed through vaccines with no safety testing, pledged to investigate whether vaccines are leading to increases in chronic disease prevalence and said there’s no data to show the COVID-19 vaccine saved millions of lives. In June, Kennedy fired all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and handpicked its new members, including individuals who have disparaged vaccines. One of those members, Retsef Levi, has said that messenger RNA vaccines cause serious harm, including death, especially among young people. Kennedy said Thursday he hadn’t heard Levi make those comments but that he agrees with them. Under questioning from Cassidy, he defended his ACIP picks, some of whom have received compensation when serving as expert witnesses in litigation targeting vaccine manufacturers. Kennedy said that is not a conflict of interest. “It may be a bias, and that bias, if disclosed, is okay,” Kennedy said. Cassidy also questioned the logic of HHS under Kennedy’s leadership canceling a $500 million investment in messenger RNA vaccine development. Barrasso, R-Wyo., pressed Kennedy on the CDC’s decisions on vaccines, expressing skepticism that the recent recommendations were coming from trusted sources. “If we’re going to make America healthy again, we can’t allow public health to be undermined," Barrasso said. After the hearing, Barrasso told reporters he is “pro vaccine and anti mandate” and wanted to make sure Americans had the information available to make their own decisions on vaccines. Not all senators rebuked Kennedy’s recent actions. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., one of Kennedy’s most vocal allies in the Senate, thanked the secretary for “putting up with this abuse.” “Five minutes isn’t even close to refute all of the falsehoods that have been confidently spewed during this hearing,” said Johnson. Lia DeGroot and Sandhya Raman contributed to this report.
