Just Asking Questions About RFK Jr.'s Senate Hearing
And not much liking the answers.
A show trial is an official proceeding that is conducted primarily for propaganda purposes rather than a tribunal seeking truth. That's what the Senate Finance Committee hearing on the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) basically amounted to. The committee's Republicans functioned largely as enthusiastic cheerleaders while the Democrats, for the most part, fully embraced their roles as zealous disparagers.
The senators' statements and, to the extent they were actually pursued, the questions focused on Kennedy's long career as an anti-vaccine campaigner, his role as a fierce and richly rewarded litigant against prescription drug companies, his longstanding pro-choice views on abortion, and his ignorance of recondite intricacies of accessing health care under the $900 billion and $1 trillion Medicaid and Medicare programs, respectively.
In his opening statement Kennedy declared, "The first thing I've done every morning for the past 20 years is to get on my knees and pray to God that He would put me in a position to end the chronic disease epidemic and to help America's children." He promised that under his direction, HHS would "remove financial conflicts of interest from our agencies," and deploy "honest, unbiased gold standard science" in making decisions. Gold standard science means, he said, among other things, the replication of research studies as a way to check the validity of findings. He commendably advocated "radical transparency" at HHS as a way to restore Americans' trust in public health agencies.
So far, so good.
But let's adopt Kennedy's "I'm just asking questions" style of discourse. Is it really credible that a man who has built much of his career on questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines and founded the country's leading anti-vaccine activist group has suddenly become "pro-vaccine"? As evidence of his newly burnished pro-vaccine bona fides, in his opening statement, Kennedy declared, "I believe that vaccines played a critical role in health care. All of my kids are vaccinated." He, however, added what amounts to a sly caveat, "I'm pro-safety." More on that last claim shortly.
Concerning his kids' vaccinations, Kennedy is engaging in what amounts to be a bit of revisionist history. As Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) subsequently pointed out, Kennedy said in a 2020 Children's Health Defense podcast—the anti-vaccine advocacy group he founded—that if he could back in time, he would not have his children vaccinated. "I would do anything for that. I would pay anything to be able to do that," he said.
After pointing out the contradiction, Wyden asked, "Are you lying to Congress today when you say that you're pro-vaccine, or did you lie on all those podcasts?" Only asking questions here.
Just exactly what does Kennedy mean when he says he is "pro-safety" with respect to vaccines? Take the case of human papillomavirus (HPV), which is the chief cause of cervical cancer in women and a leading cause of head and neck cancers in both sexes. Clinical trials show that HPV vaccines are nearly 100 percent effective in preventing the sort of persistent infections that lead to cancer. So far 135 million doses of HPV vaccines have been administered to about 39 percent of children (15 million or so) ages 9 to 17 in the United States. The law firm for which Kennedy has consulted represents 200 cases of alleged injury from Merck's HPV vaccine. Making the heroic assumption that trial lawyers are disinterested purveyors of truth and that those cases are actually related to the vaccine, the implied rate of vaccination injury out of 80 million doses is 1 in 400,000.
Let's compare that to the chances of a woman getting cervical cancer. The good news is that due to increased screening, cervical cancer incidence has been falling, but it is still at 7 per 100,000 and the death rate is 2.2 per 100,000 women. Even better news is that since the advent of HPV vaccines the cervical cancer rate in young women (the group most likely to have been vaccinated) has dropped by around half.
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System recorded around 2,500 serious events after Gardasil vaccination, which yields a rate of injury of 16 out of 100,000. That compares to a rate of injuries for 5- to 14-year-olds treated in hospital emergency rooms for football at 348 per 100,000; golf at 20 per 100,000; fishing at 27 per 100,000; swimming pools at 164 per 100,000; cans at 49 per 100,000; nails at 31 per 100,000; and beds and mattresses at 152 per 100,000. Golf with an emergency room injury rate of 20 per 100,000 is more dangerous than getting a vaccine that prevents cancer.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), attempted to probe Kennedy's relationship with the Children's Health Defense (CHD) anti-vaccination group. The senator displayed onesies offered for the last several months by CHD emblazoned "UNVAXXED, UNAFRAID" and "NO VAX, NO PROBLEM."
Noting that Kennedy now says that he is pro-vaccine, the senator challenged him to get CHD to take the product off the market. "Senator, I have no power over that organization. I am not part of it. I have resigned from the board," responded Kennedy, stating again that he is "supportive of vaccines." Keep in mind that Kennedy officially resigned as chairman of CHD's board only last month.
With respect to Kennedy's possible conflicts of interest, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) had a point. She began by noting that Kennedy had said that he would "slam shut the revolving door between government agencies and the companies they regulate." She then asked if he would commit to not accepting compensation from a drug company, hospital system, or health insurer for at least four years after he was no longer HHS Secretary. He said, yes. Warren commended him, noting that "every American has the right to know that every decision you make as our number one health officer is to help them and not to make money for yourself in the future."
She then turned to Kennedy's ongoing financial relationship with a law firm that is pursuing lawsuits alleging injuries from the HPV vaccine Gardasil (see above). The firm has paid out $2.5 million to Kennedy so far. To be sure, that relationship has been disclosed and waived through by the relevant government ethics oversight authorities. Warren, however, noted that Kennedy gets 10 percent of whatever sums the lawsuits obtain. She then suggested that as HHS secretary, Kennedy could significantly influence decisions about vaccines and thus possibly benefit from lawsuits stemming from those decisions. She asked him to commit to not taking any compensation for such lawsuits for four years after he is no longer secretary. Kennedy refused to say that he would sever his ties to the possibly lucrative lawsuits, replying, "I will comply with all ethical guidelines."
What about Kennedy's longstanding and ardent pro-choice views? "In 2023, you came to New Hampshire and said, 'I'm pro-choice, I don't think the government has any business telling people what they can or cannot do to their body,'" Sen. Maggie Hassan (D–N.H.) pointed. "So, you said that, right?"
"Yes," Kennedy replied.
Hassan continued, "Mr. Kennedy, I'm confused. You clearly stated in the past that bodily autonomy is one of your core values. The question is, do you stand for that value or not? When did you decide to sell out the values you've had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?"
As the hearing made clear, that power includes a "safety" review of the abortion medication mifepristone. Medication abortions accounted for 63 percent of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023 and their safety profile is comparable to clinical abortions. "President Trump has asked me to study the safety of mifepristone," Kennedy said. "He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it. Whatever he does, I will implement those policies."
One area of somewhat bipartisan agreement was that "Big Pharma" is bad. Just how bad? Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R–Tenn.) asked Kennedy about "over-medicating" young people. Kennedy responded that around 15 percent of American teenagers have used attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications, likely citing a recent National Institute for Drug Abuse survey. He then went to further damn drug companies by asserting, "A recent study found that pharmaceutical drugs are the third-largest cause of death in our country after heart attacks and cancers. They are not making us healthier." Kennedy is most likely referencing a fringe 2014 study by Danish researcher Peter Gøtzsche. Interestingly, Mark Makary, Trump's nominee for commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration coauthored a 2016 analysis claiming that medical error (not prescription drugs) was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. Subsequent analyses argued that its claims were based on dubious epidemiological extrapolations.
Finally, Wyden ended by dismissing Kennedy's responses on vaccines as a "word salad" and by pointing out that the intricacies of Medicaid and Medicare evidently stumped the HHS nominee.
In his resignation letter to the anti-vaccination group he founded, Kennedy wrote: "One of my guiding principles has been and will continue to be what was best said by a philosopher: 'All truth passes through three states. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.'" So having been ridiculed, and violently opposed, are we now at the stage where the truth is that it is self-evident that Kennedy should not become Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services?
As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D–R.I.) pleaded, "I hope my colleagues will say to the president out of 330 million Americans, we can do better than this."
