US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that firing a top government scientist was "absolutely necessary," as he faced blistering criticism from Democrats urging him to resign over his steps to curb vaccines.
The Senate hearing on Thursday, marked by sharp exchanges that often erupted into shouting matches, came days after the ouster of Sue Monarez, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"We are the sickest country in the world. That's why we have to fire people at CDC. They did not do their job," Kennedy said.
"This morning I got a the latest numbers from CDC that 76.4 percent of Americans now have a chronic disease. This is stunning. When my uncle [John Fitzgerald Kennedy] was president, it was 11 percent. In 1950, it was 3 percent. Today, 76.4 percent. Eight out of 10 of our kids cannot qualify for military service. This is a national security issue," he said, adding "When my uncle was president, we spent zero on chronic disease. Today we spend $1.3 trillion."
Monarez's dismissal, accompanied by several high-level resignations and hundreds of earlier layoffs, has plunged the nation's premier public health agency into turmoil.
In his opening remarks, Kennedy tore into the CDC's actions during the Covid pandemic, accusing the agency of failing "miserably" with "disastrous and nonsensical" policies including masking guidance, social distancing and school closures.
"We need bold, competent and creative new leadership at CDC, people able and willing to chart a new course," he said, touting the health department's new focus on chronic disease and promoting prevention.
Monarez, the CDC director whom Kennedy previously endorsed, accused the secretary of a "deliberate effort to weaken America's public-health system and vaccine protections" in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday.
Kennedy's explanation for her firing — as he told Senator Elizabeth Warren — was simply: "I asked her, 'Are you a trustworthy person?' And she said, 'No.'"
Bitter exchanges
Once a respected environmental lawyer, Kennedy emerged in the mid-2000s as a leading anti-vaccine activist before being tapped by President Donald Trump as health secretary in his second administration.
Since taking office, he has restricted Covid-19 shots to narrower groups, cut off federal research grants for the mRNA technology, and redirected funding toward research on claims linking vaccines to autism.
Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee leading the hearing, set the tone by demanding Kennedy be sworn in under oath — accusing him of lying in prior written testimony when he pledged not to limit vaccine access.
"It is in the country's best interest that Robert Kennedy step down, and if he doesn't, Donald Trump should fire him before more people are hurt," Wyden thundered.
But Republican committee chairman Mike Crapo shot down the request, praising Kennedy's focus on chronic diseases such as obesity.
The exchanges only grew more ill-tempered.
Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell branded Kennedy a "charlatan" over his attacks on mRNA research, while Kennedy accused Senator Maggie Hassan of "crazy talk" and "making things up to scare people" when she said parents were already struggling to get Covid vaccines for their children.
Vaccines have become the flashpoint in an ever-deepening partisan battle.
Conservative-leaning Florida on Wednesday announced it would end all immunisation requirements, including at schools, while a West Coast alliance of California, Washington and Oregon announced they would make their own vaccine recommendation body to counter Kennedy's influence at the national level.
