2 weeks Ago
During his two days of Senate confirmation hearings, several moments reminded us of the enormous responsibility Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would have as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
And there were many more moments when he proved he wasn’t up to the task. Hours of grilling by senators did nothing to quiet fears that Kennedy continued to hold dangerous views on vaccines. Worse, the questioning revealed how he would rely on junk science to push his agenda and that of President Donald Trump.
As the country’s top public health official, Kennedy could affect everything from access to abortion care to shaping the mission of the nation’s premier biomedical research agency and beyond. He would oversee the agencies that regulate our food and medicine, set the scientific agenda for understanding and treating disease, coordinate the country’s response to pandemics, and provide health care coverage for tens of millions of Americans. Yet Kennedy’s exchanges with senators exposed deep gaps in his knowledge about the job.
When lobbed softball questions about Medicare and Medicaid, he botched nearly every reply. He repeatedly confused the two programs, referencing Medicaid premiums as too high (most people do not pay for their care). He could not explain the four key components of Medicare and incorrectly described how Medicaid is funded.
Related Articles His tenuous grasp of the basics of programs that together provide health coverage for nearly 150 million Americans is particularly worrisome, given that Republicans are reportedly targeting Medicaid for painful cuts. Such cuts would be devastating for the short- and long-term health of so many Americans, including pregnant women, children, people with disabilities and seniors who rely on the program for long-term care. It’s unclear if he would understand the gravity of those cuts, let alone how to help mitigate their effects.
When questioned about his plans to reform health agencies, his standard response was to restore “gold-standard science” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. However, he never gave a clear definition of the term. He brushed off questions about perceived conflicts of interest and talked in circles when asked if he would pledge not to accept any money awarded in the many vaccine-related lawsuits he is involved with.
(On Friday, he said he would give his son the financial stake in those suits.) Kennedy also suggested that a fifth of the NIH budget should be devoted to replicating the findings of research studies. Top journals already require studies to be replicated.
Kennedy provided ample reason to worry about how his definition of “gold standard” might be wielded to realize Trump’s political agenda. That concern was amplified amid questioning about Kennedy’s position on abortion, which has recently shifted from a long-standing abortion-rights stance to a more Republican-friendly (albeit still vague) one. As secretary, Kennedy would have considerable influence over women’s access to mifepristone, part of a two-pill medication abortion regimen that accounts for over half of the procedures in the U.
S. He told senators that President Trump has asked him to review the drug’s safety, despite, as Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan pointed out, it having been affirmed across dozens of studies. Kennedy’s assessment of mifepristone could be used to justify reinstating 2000-era barriers to accessing the drug, such as pressuring the FDA to rescind its ability to be prescribed via telehealth and dispensed by mail.
Some even fear his assessment could be used to withdraw the drug’s approval altogether. Any new barriers would affect women everywhere, regardless of their state’s laws on abortion. Kennedy pointed to a common claim used by anti-abortion activists, culled from since-retracted papers, to refute mifepristone’s safety: a small percentage of women end up in the emergency room after taking the pill.
As I’ve written before, critics use data that conflates a visit to the ER with a serious health issue. Most of those visits are by women who have questions about the process or want to confirm the pregnancy is terminated. Of course, Kennedy’s dangerous views on vaccines got the most airtime.
The most impactful moment came at the end of the second-day hearing. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician and strong advocate for childhood vaccines, asked Kennedy to convince him that he would be a public health advocate for vaccines and not “churn old information so there’s a new conclusion.
” Rather than allay Cassidy’s fears and send a clear message to Congress and his Make America Healthy Again followers that he trusts vaccines, Kennedy reverted to his standard line: “I’m going to be an advocate for science.” It was one of several times when Kennedy refused to plainly state that he believed — which research has proven — the measles vaccine does not cause autism. Kennedy offered to meet with Cassidy to discuss the scientific evidence on vaccines, noting that he would love to share a few of his studies with the Louisiana lawmaker.
Kennedy referenced a new “study” connecting vaccines to neurodevelopmental disorders — work funded by an anti-vaccine group, authored by a scientist at a questionable research nonprofit, and published by a questionable outlet rather than a respected, peer-reviewed journal. If that’s Kennedy’s gold standard, we should worry about his assessment of vaccines and every aspect of science and health he would oversee. Anyone who believes in the value of vaccines must see that moment for what it is: a glimpse at Kennedy’s authentic self, someone who can’t resist cherry-picking the science to fit his narrative.
He would continue to do so while leading HHS, with dire consequences for Americans’ health. Any senator who walked into the hearings feeling conflicted cannot in good conscience vote to confirm him. Kennedy made clear that he’s not prepared to manage the future of health in America — and that the potential consequences would go far beyond vaccines.
Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News..
