AMY GOODMAN: In Washington, Democratic and Republican senators, two of them doctors, grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his attacks on vaccines and ongoing turmoil at the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control.

The hearing came a week after RFK fired the head of the CDC, Susan Monarez, just over a month after she was confirmed to the position. On Thursday, two former top officials at the National Institutes of Health filed whistleblower complaints, saying they were forced out of their leadership positions after they criticized the Trump administration for canceling grants and spreading vaccine skepticism. In June, Kennedy fired all 17 expert members of a CDC vaccine advisory panel.

Health officials inside and outside the government are increasingly warning about Kennedy’s actions. Three senior CDC officials resigned in protest last week. This week, more than a thousand current and former HHS workers sent a letter to Congress demanding Kennedy’s resignation over his pseudoscientific claims and his attacks on public health. Nine former CDC directors recently wrote in The New York Times, Kennedy is “endangering the health of every American.”

At Thursday’s hearing, both Republicans and Democrats grilled Kennedy, with some calling for his resignation. This is Republican Senator Dr. John Barrasso, majority whip in the Senate, a close ally of President Trump. He’s an orthopedic surgeon.

SEN. DR. JOHN BARRASSO: So, over the last 50 years, vaccines are estimated to have saved 154 million lives worldwide. I support vaccines. I’m a doctor. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned. The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership in the National Institute of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the recently confirmed director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired. Americans don’t know who to rely on.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Republican Senator Dr. John Barrasso of Wyoming — he’s number two in the Senate — speaking to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy. And this is Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.

SEN. MARK WARNER: Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I don’t know how many died.

SEN. MARK WARNER: You’re the secretary of Health and Human Services. You don’t have any idea how many Americans died from COVID?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I don’t think anybody knows, because the — there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC, and there were —

SEN. MARK WARNER: So, I’ll take [inaudible] — 

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: — so many perverse incentives.

SEN. MARK WARNER: Secretary, you —

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: And these are model [inaudible].

SEN. MARK WARNER: You don’t know — you don’t know the answer of how many Americans died —

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Oh, I —

SEN. MARK WARNER: — from COVID. This is the secretary of Health and Human Services. Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional deaths?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Again, I would like to see the data and talk about the data. I’m not fully —

SEN. MARK WARNER: You’ve had this job for eight months, and you don’t know the data about whether the vaccine saved lives?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: No, and that’s the problem, is that they didn’t have the data. The data by the Biden administration is absolutely dismal. It was data chaos.

SEN. MARK WARNER: So, you — who is politicizing? You’re saying the Biden administration politicized all the data? Go back to what Senator Cantwell just said.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: They fired Dr. Krause.

SEN. MARK WARNER: Go to the Trump surgeon general.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: They fired Dr. Krause. They fired all the people who questioned the orthodoxy. They fired Dr. Gruber, Dr. Krause [inaudible].

SEN. MARK WARNER: Mr. Chairman, the secretary of Health and Human Services doesn’t know how many Americans died from COVID, doesn’t know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths. And you are sitting as secretary of Health and Human Services? How can you be that ignorant?

AMY GOODMAN: That was Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia questioning Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And this is Republican Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.

SEN. DR. BILL CASSIDY: I said yesterday — I believe it — that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed. If he had been President Obama, he would have gotten it. But because of Operation Warp Speed forcing the federal government to come to a vaccine development within 10 months, when others said it couldn’t be done, we saved millions of lives globally, trillions of dollars. We reopened economies. An incredible accomplishment. Mr. Secretary, do you agree with me that the president — that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Yeah, absolutely, Senator. That was phenomenal.

SEN. DR. BILL CASSIDY: So, let me ask you. Let me ask you. But you just told Senator Bennet that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Wait.

SEN. DR. BILL CASSIDY: That was a statement that you —

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I did not say that.

SEN. DR. BILL CASSIDY: OK. Then, let me ask, because you also [inaudible] —

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Senator, I just want to make clear: I did not say that.

SEN. DR. BILL CASSIDY: You — OK, well, we’ll check the record. That’s a question of fact. You also said that you were also — as lead attorney for the Children’s Health Defense, you engaged in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the COVID vaccine. Again, it surprises me that you think so highly of Operation Warp Speed, when, as an attorney, you attempted to restrict access. Let me ask —

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I’m happy — I’m happy to explain why.

SEN. DR. BILL CASSIDY: I have — I have three minutes and 30 seconds left. It also surprises me, because you’ve canceled — or HHS did, but apparently under your direction — $500 million in contracts using the mRNA vaccine platform that was critical to Operation Warp Speed — again, an accomplishment that I think President Trump should get a Nobel Prize for. You canceled $500 million in contracts.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Republican Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana questioning Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a highly contentious hearing Thursday. This is more of Senator Cassidy.

SEN. DR. BILL CASSIDY: You also told Senator Wyden at the outset that you didn’t want to take vaccines away from people. And as I conclude, I would like to say this, because of the conflicting recommendations made by — about COVID.

This is from Erick Erickson, good conservative out of Atlanta, Georgia, occasionally gives me help: “My wife has stage 4 lung cancer. She is one of the people the COVID vaccine actually helps. Thanks to the current mess at HHS, CVS is unable to get her a vaccine.”

Secondly, an email from a physician friend of mine: “Hey, Bill. I’m not even sure what I’m asking you, but we’re all confused and concerned about who can get the COVID vaccine. We are having our attorney try and render an opinion, but there’s no firm guidance, and concerned about liability if vaccines are given to a patient requested but not on the current CDC list. Pharmacists are requiring a prescription now even for patients over 65, creating a huge headache.”

I submit these for the record.

CHAIR: Without objection.

SEN. DR. BILL CASSIDY: I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccine.

CHAIR: Senator Cantwell.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: You’re wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: Again, Dr. Cassidy, Louisiana senator, at Thursday’s hearing.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s record as HHS is what we're looking at. We’re joined by Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and a physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He was just blocked from participating on the FDA advisory committee on vaccines. Dr. Offit is co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC.

Dr. Offit, welcome back to Democracy Now! So, you have two doctors, both of them Republican — one of them, Dr. Barrasso, is number two Republican leader in the Senate — severely questioning Kennedy, RFK Jr., along, of course, with the Democrats. Can you address, overall, what happened yesterday, what you think was most important that came out of it? And we want to really focus on what his position means for access to vaccines in this country.

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Well, so, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a 20-year history of being an anti-vaccine propagandist, science denialist and conspiracy theorist. Since 2016, he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group, to represent them, to represent their anti-vaccine point of view. He’s not paid by them anymore. He’s paid by us to be the number one public health officer in this country, to represent the public’s health. But he doesn’t. He continues to be the anti-vaccine activist and propagandist that he always was. I mean, he has said that he thinks no vaccine is beneficial. He has said he thinks the COVID vaccines were the deadliest vaccines ever made. He said that if he could go back in time, he would pay anything not to vaccinate his own children.

And I think probably the best example of this, and the reason he should have been fired on the spot, was when, during this measles epidemic, when we’ve had an epidemic that has involved probably about 5,000 people in this country, the biggest epidemic we’ve had in 33 years — we’ve had two children die, two healthy little girls in West Texas, 6- and 8-year-old, die. That’s the first measles deaths since 2003. During this epidemic, right after two children had died, he goes on national television and says that measles vaccine kills people every year — which is wrong. He says measles vaccine causes blindness and deafness — which is wrong. He said measles virus, natural measles virus, prevents cancer, prevents heart disease, prevents autoimmune disease. He never owns up to these statements. But he said that during the midst of an epidemic that’s the biggest we’ve had in more than three decades. Right there, Senator Cassidy should have walked into Donald Trump’s office and say, “This is not the guy.” You can still have your MAHA movement, but his anti-vaccine activist is causing children to die unnecessarily. He has to step down.

AMY GOODMAN: In June, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control’s vaccine advisory panel, accusing the panel of conflicts of interest, replacing them with vaccine skeptics. I want to turn to Colorado’s Democratic Senator Michael Bennet grilling RFK Jr. at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. Michael Bennet, the senator from Colorado.

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET: Are you aware that one of the people you put on the panel, Dr. Robert Malone, claimed that the commonly used mRNA vaccine, quote, “causes a form of AIDS” and can damage children’s, quote, “brains, their heart, their immune system and their ability to have children in the future”? Yes or no, Mr. Kennedy?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Dr. Malone is one of the inventors of — 

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET: Yes or no? Yes or no? Are you — were you aware that he had that view when you appointed him to this panel?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Dr. Malone is one of the — 

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET: I’ll take —

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: As I said, Dr. Malone —

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET: That statement —

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: — is one of the inventors of the mRNA vaccine.

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET: That’s fine. That’s not an issue. My — 

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: So he knows a lot more about it than I do.

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET: That statement — Mr. Chairman, that statement is not true, that Dr. Malone made, just as it wasn’t true when you wrote that, quote, “African AIDS is entirely different from Western AIDS.” Are you aware that another one of these new members, Dr. Levi, wrote that, quote, “Evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm, including death, especially among young people”? Yes or no? Are you aware that he said that?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I wasn’t aware he said it. But I think — I agree with it.

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET: You agree with it. It’s not true.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Senator Bennet questioning RFK Jr. Can you explain what he’s talking about, Dr. Paul Offit, and especially the amount of money that has been pulled from mRNA research, which is not just about COVID, it’s about cancer and many other diseases?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Well, I think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a one-man wrecking ball against public health. I mean, for example, when you refer to the $500 million that was withdrawn from BARDA, which is a research development authority in the federal government, I mean, that’s looking at things, for example, like mRNA vaccines against bird flu.

And, you know, although we talk about Operation Warp Speed, which certainly was a tremendous accomplishment, but who were the real heroes of this pandemic? I would argue the real heroes are, one, Drew Weissman and Katie Carrico, who in 1997 started working on mRNA technology and were able to ultimately develop that as a vaccine platform, for which they won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and then the National Institutes of Health. In 2002 and 2003, SARS-1 raised its head in China. And so, they started working on an mRNA vaccine against SARS-1. Now, SARS-1 never entered this country, but we had a lot of information when SARS-CoV-2 raised its head in 2019.

And that’s what BARDA was doing, what that research development authority was doing. They were doing the kind of groundwork so that when a — for example, bird flu, if it does become a pandemic, we would be ready. And I think people don’t realize that when you see a vaccine with Operation Warp Speed, that’s the tip of a much bigger iceberg. I think his tearing down of the public health infrastructure is really hurting us.

And when he says that he’s not denying people vaccines, nobody has been hurt by his actions more than pregnant women. He has basically said pregnant women are not recommended to receive this vaccine, even though pregnancy is clearly a high-risk complication or situation for people who have COVID. They are one-and-a-half to two times more likely to be hospitalized, more likely to be mechanically ventilated and more likely to die with COVID than women who are pregnant who are not infected with COVID or women of reproductive age who have COVID but aren’t pregnant. So, that’s clear. We’re the only country in the world that doesn’t consider pregnancy to be a high-risk situation for severe COVID. And I have had many pregnant women call me and say, “I can’t get this vaccine.” So, of course he’s taking away vaccine from people. That’s what he wants to do. And then he sits in front of Congress and lies about it.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to go to this issue of access, because this is absolutely key. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts questioned RFK Jr.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Will you tell America that all adults and all children over 6 months of age are eligible to get a COVID booster at their local pharmacy today?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Anybody can get the booster.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: I’m sorry?

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Anybody can get it, Senator.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Anybody. So, you’re saying that is now the official rule of HHS: Anybody is eligible to get a booster by just walking into the pharmacy.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: It’s not recommended for healthy people.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: No, no. If you don’t recommend, then the consequence of that, in many states, is that you can’t walk into a pharmacy and get one. It means insurance companies don’t have to cover the $200 or so cost. As Senator Dr. Cassidy said, you are effectively denying people vaccines.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I’m not going to recommend a product for which there’s no clinical data for that indication, which — is that what I should be doing?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: What you should be doing is honoring your promise that you made when you were looking to get confirmed in this job.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: You’re going like this.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: And that is, you promised that you would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them. You just changed the classification of the COVID vaccine.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I’m not taking them away from people, Senator.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: And the consequence — it takes it away if you can’t get it from your pharmacist.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Well, most Americans are going to be able to get it from their pharmacy for free.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: It takes it away if you have to pay $200.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Most Americans will be able to get it from their pharmacy free.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: No, the question is everyone who wants it. That was your promise, Mr. Kennedy, not mine.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: No, I didn’t. No, I never promised that I was going to recommend —

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: You didn’t promise? Oh, I’m sorry.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: — products with which there is no indication.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Senator Warren questioning Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Can you clear this up, Dr. Paul Offit? You also had Senator Cassidy quoting Erick Erickson, saying his wife has fourth stage lung cancer, and she couldn’t go into her drugstore, very immunocompromised, and get the COVID vaccine.

DR. PAUL OFFIT: I think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has no idea what’s going on on the ground. I mean, it is now very hard to get vaccines for some people, because, for example, pharmacies will always look to the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices for whether or not they’re going to allow their pharmacists to give vaccines. The American — the ACIP, Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, still hasn’t weighed in on COVID, so they’re waiting. So, many, many states now, you can’t go to CVS and get a vaccine, because we’re waiting for the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices to say something. I don’t think he has any idea the way this plays out.

For example, there were data presented by the CDC — when we still had a functioning CDC — back in April, where Fiona Havers looked at the last year for children, and what she found was that thousands of children were hospitalized. One in five were going to the intensive care unit. A hundred and fifty children died. Half were previously healthy. Nonetheless, RFK Jr., one month later, stands up and says, “We’re not recommending this vaccine for healthy young children,” completely at variance with the data that were presented. And so, the woman who presented that, Fiona Havers, left the CDC, because, she said, they’re just not paying attention to the data. And now the only vaccine that we have licensed for children less than 5 is only for high-risk groups, even though, clearly, children who are otherwise healthy and not in a high-risk group may be hospitalized.

So, he’s made it more difficult to get vaccines because he’s an anti-vaccine activist. Not at any point during that committee hearing did he ever say anything positive about vaccines. Not once.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Fox, when Health Secretary Robert Kennedy attacked you, Dr. Paul Offit, directly. This was in June.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Four out of the five members who voted to recommend the rotavirus vaccine to the schedule had a direct financial interest in that vaccine. One of those individuals voted to add it to the schedule, and then he subsequently sold his vaccine — he owned and developed for this, a guy called Dr. Paul Offit — sold his share — his patent on the vaccine for $186 million. So he said he won the lottery because of his vote.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond, Dr. Paul Offit, to Kennedy’s accusation against you?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: OK, so, I was on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices between 1998 and 2003. The vaccine on which I am a co-inventor, with Stanley Plotkin and Fred Clark, came up for a vote in 2006. So, I had been off that committee for three years, so I didn’t vote for the vaccine on which I was a co-inventor. Secondly, although I am a co-inventor, with Stanley Plotkin and Fred Clark, I am the intellectual property of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. They, for all intents and purposes, own that vaccine. So they’re the ones who sold it out, not me. So, I didn’t make $186 million on that vaccine. I think I would have known about that.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about being removed from — explain what the advisory committee is and what happened to you this week.

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Right. So, the FDA has its own advisory committee, called VRBPAC, Vaccine and Related Biological Product Advisory Committee. I was on that committee, for the first term, between 2017 and 2021, then another four-year term between 2021 and 2025. And so, I was — as far as I know, I was off the committee. But then, one of the senior FDA officials wanted me to have another four-year term because they valued my expertise. So I agreed to do a two-year term. And then I was — you know, I was on the committee again for two years, ’til 2027.

But as you do another rotation, there’s this pro forma series of forms you have to fill out for special government employees, the SGE forms. So I filled out those forms, sent them into the FDA. The FDA approved them. Then it went to HHS, Health and Human Services, where it got stuck, and it wouldn’t release those forms out of Health and Human Services. I don’t know why. I was never told why. I imagine Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had something to do with that, because he doesn’t seem to like me very much. So, now I’m not on the committee.

But I want to say this. Unlike the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, where they fired 17 people, all of whom had an expertise and experience, and then replaced them with people who didn’t, so now we’re not getting good advice from the ACIP, and now I think the medical and scientific community is ignoring the ACIP, that’s not true with the FDA committee. There are great people who remain on that committee. I think that committee’s advice is to be trusted. I think the fact that I’m not on that committee in no way hurts that committee.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end in Florida, Dr. Offit. Florida plans to become the first state to end all vaccine mandates for children to attend school — of course, everyone is going back to school this week — including for preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis. In a news conference, the state’s surgeon general said the vaccine requirement is, quote, “wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.” The American Medical Association responded to Florida’s plan to end vaccine mandates, saying it would, quote, “undermine decades of public health progress.” Your response, as we wrap up?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: The measles is the most contagious human infection. When immunization rates for a measles comes back — there are two things that the public health community has to stop those kinds of outbreaks. One is quarantine of people who are sick, and two is vaccination. And so, in the 1970s, even though school immunization requirements had been on the book for decades, they really weren’t enforced. And there were these massive outbreaks in Los Angeles, in Alaska, in Detroit. Tens of thousands of children got measles, and about 160 died. So, what they did, what those schools did, is they mandated vaccines. They enforced those mandates, so you couldn’t go back to school until you were vaccinated, and then that stopped those outbreaks.

The surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, has now taken away that important tool to stop outbreaks. And I fear for the education of children in Florida, who now will probably start to miss more time from school and be less educated.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Paul Offit, I thank you so much for being with us, director of the Vaccine Education Center, physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

When we come back, the Trump administration is threatening to carry out more military attacks in Latin America under the guise of the “war on drugs,” after the U.S. blew up a boat off the coast of Venezuela. President Trump, Defense Secretary Hegseth have not provided evidence that it was a drug boat. In fact, some are wondering if it wasn’t a boat carrying migrants. We’ll speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian Greg Grandin. Back in 20 seconds.

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AMY GOODMAN: Zeshan B covering “You Don’t Miss Your Water” at our Democracy Now! studio.