Originally published by our sister publication Pharmacy Practice News
By Gina Shaw
In a three-hour hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 4, senators from both sides of the aisle sharply questioned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his position on vaccines, decision to remove CDC Director Susan Monarez, MD, and his recent purge of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), replacing a panel comprised largely of infectious disease experts with a group that includes individuals who have promoted anti-vaccine organizations and conspiracy theories.
“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then I’ve grown deeply concerned,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). “The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership in the NIH [National Institutes of Health] questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the recently confirmed director of CDC fired. Americans don’t know who to rely on.”
“I traveled across Oregon last month, and the message was the same from one end of the state to the other: Families are confused and scared about who to trust about their health care. Robert Kennedy and Donald Trump are to blame for this,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “Every single day, there’s been an action that endangers the health and wellness of families. Robert Kennedy has elevated conspiracy theorists, crackpots and grifters to make life or death decisions about Americans’ health care.”
Even Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.), whose support and vote was crucial to Mr. Kennedy’s appointment, was frustrated with Mr. Kennedy. The senator pointed out inconsistencies in Mr. Kennedy’s statements, asking: “Do you agree with me that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?”
When Mr. Kennedy responded, “absolutely,” Mr. Cassidy noted that he had just inaccurately told Sen. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.) that the COVID-19 vaccine had killed more people than the COVID-19 virus. Studies have repeatedly shown that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective for both adults and children and that vaccinated individuals who contract the virus do better than those who are unvaccinated (MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2025;74[6]:73-82; BMC Infect Dis 2025;25[1]:144).
Mr. Kennedy denied saying that and then pointed to reports on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) about adverse events. He did not explain that VAERS is a passive reporting system in which anyone can make a report about a possible adverse event, but that typically those reports are investigated to make sure that the event was caused by the vaccine, rather than caused by some other factor, so just because an event is reported does not mean the vaccine caused it. Mr. Kennedy also said that VAERS is the only adverse event reporting system in the United States. It is not. There are several, including the Vaccine Safety Datalink that looks at electroinic health records to assess adverse events.
Sen. Cassidy, who said he was speaking as a physician, not a senator, reminded Mr. Kennedy that he was the lead attorney for the Children's Health Defense, which sues pharmaceutical companies over alleged vaccine injuries, and has engaged in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the COVID vaccine. "It surprises me that you think so highly of Operation Warp Speed when as an attorney you attempted to restrict access [to COVID vaccines]," Sen. Cassidy said. Operation Warp Speed was the program that quickly developed and produced COVID-19 vaccines to end the pandemic. Mr. Cassidy added that Donald Trump shoud win the Nobel Prize for this campaign, and Mr. Kennedy agreed with the senator.
"It surprises me because ... HHS under your direction cancelled $500 million in contracts using the mRNA vaccine platform that was critical to Operation Warp Speed," Sen. Cassidy said.
In addition to another question, Mr. Kennedy said that suing vaccine manufacturers was not a conflict of interest for anyone sitting on the board of the ACIP.
Mr. Kennedy defended the abrupt firing of Dr. Monarez, who had served less than a month—calling the move “absolutely necessary” due to what he claimed were agency failures during the pandemic. Dr. Monarez had publicly claimed she was forced to endorse recommendations from Mr. Kennedy’s revamped ACIP panel; he claimed that those remarks were lies. (Mr. Kennedy was not testifying under oath, despite a request from Sen. Wyden that he do so. Ranking Chair Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) denied a request.)
"I will personally object and will reject your request," Crapo said. "We will treat this witness as we treat all of the other administration witnesses who come before us."“Did you tell the head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, that she had to resign?” asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“No. I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said no,” Mr. Kennedy responded.
Ms. Warren was incredulous. “This is the same person that less than a month earlier, you stood next to her and described her as unimpeachable, and you had full confidence in her, and that you had full confidence in her scientific credentials,” she said. “And in a month, she became a liar.”
In an opinion article published in the Wall Street Journal the same day, Dr. Monarez warned, “Those seeking to undermine vaccines use a familiar playbook: discredit research, weaken advisory committees, and use manipulated outcomes to unravel protections that generations of families have relied on to keep deadly diseases at bay. Once trusted experts are removed and advisory bodies are stacked, the results are predetermined. That isn’t reform. It is sabotage.”
Mr. Kennedy also defended terminating all 17 members of ACIP, saying he “depoliticized” the panel. “We are the sickest country in the world,” he claimed. “That’s why we have to fire people at CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy. I need to fire some of those people to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
One of the only senators to praise Kennedy in the hearing was Ron Johnson (R-WI), who thanked him for “putting up with this abuse," and said he did not have enough time to “refute all of the falsehoods that have been confidently spewed during this hearing.”
The hearing took place as more than 20 leading health organizations, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists issued a joint statement calling for Mr. Kennedy’s resignation.
“Forcing high-level CDC expert leaders to turn their back on decades of sound science to meet Kennedy’s agenda puts us all at risk. This final exclamation point on a term defined by repeated efforts to undermine science and public health definitively leaves Americans less safe in a multitude of ways,” they said, noting risks not only to vaccination but also to food safety, diagnostic testing, infection tracking and surveillance, public and provider education, chronic disease prevention and management, emergency response, progress against long-standing epidemics, and the capacity of state and local health departments.
“We are gravely concerned that American people will needlessly suffer and die as a result of policies that turn away from sound interventions. After careful consideration, we insist on Kennedy’s resignation to restore the integrity, credibility and science-driven mission of HHS and all its agencies,” they wrote. “It is time to reverse course and begin rebuilding the public health infrastructure overseen by CDC. Kennedy has proven himself unwilling and ill-prepared to lead that effort.”
