RFK Jr. Couldn’t Sidestep Vaccine Landmines in First of Many Congressional Hearings

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. couldn’t avoid heated exchanges with Democrats over vaccines and the administration’s health fraud investigations Thursday, despite an apparent effort to stay on message.

The Ways and Means Committee hearing Thursday kicked off a marathon of Kennedy appearances in Congress over the next week – the first since the administration significantly pared back federal childhood vaccine recommendations.

The hearing was a test of how disciplined Kennedy can stay as the White House seeks to quiet his more controversial stances ahead of the midterm elections and highlight his agency’s more popular efforts to clean up the nation’s food supply and lower drug prices.

On several occasions, Kennedy tried to speak over Democrats drilling him over the recent rise in measles cases and his reluctance to fully endorse vaccines.

When Rep. Linda Sánchez, a Democrat from California, pressed Kennedy on whether President Donald Trump had approved his decision last year to end a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pro-vaccine public messaging campaign, Kennedy told the congresswoman, “You’ve got a lot of misinformation there.”

“One thing I find incredible is that you suspended this pro-vaccine messaging campaign, but somehow you’re spending taxpayer dollars to drink milk shirtless in a hot tub with Kid Rock,” Sánchez retorted. “And somehow you think that’s a better public health message.”

But in a sign of how Kennedy has been pushed to temper his vaccine rhetoric, Kennedy admitted “it’s possible, certainly,” when Sánchez asked if he thought it was possible the measles vaccine would have been able to save the life of an unvaccinated Texas child who died last year.

Three measles-related deaths occurred last year. There have been no deaths confirmed this year, but 96 patients have been hospitalized, nearly all of them unvaccinated, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Kennedy last appeared before Congress in September, in a highly contentious hearing where even some Republicans expressed concerns about his plans to change vaccine recommendations.

The White House, which has installed Medicare director Chris Klomp as Kennedy’s de facto chief of staff, views Kennedy’s vaccine moves as a political liability, as polling shows broad support for reforming the food industry and cutting down on chemicals but far less support for rolling back vaccine access. Kennedy has largely stayed on message about his work on chronic disease and food as he tours swing states on his “Make America Healthy Again” tour.

But his agency has taken unprecedented steps to narrow childhood vaccine recommendations and undermine public confidence in vaccine safety. Earlier this year the CDC trimmed the number of routine vaccines recommended for all children from 17 to 11, a move that has been temporarily blocked by the courts and raised alarms among medical experts.

Last year a group of vaccine advisers to the CDC voted to strike a universal recommendation for all infants to get a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The agency also edited its website to say research hasn’t ruled out a link between infant vaccines and autism.

Reps. Mike Thompson and John Larson, both Democrats, confronted Kennedy during the hearing over his reluctance to endorse vaccines, calling attention to the measles outbreak that has threatened the U.S.’s disease elimination status.

“Mr. Secretary, kids have died because measles is running rampant under your watch,” Thompson said. “We have you and this president elevating misinformation and undermining basic public health.”

The administration’s efforts to root out fraud in the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid also took center stage on Thursday. Democrats say they’re all for rooting out fraud but accuse Republicans of overly focusing on fraud committed by individuals instead of providers and using fraud to justify sweeping health care cuts in Trump’s tax bill.

Top Democrat Rep. Richard Neal noted that fraud in Medicare and Medicaid is overwhelmingly committed by providers, not individuals, and pointed to Trump’s pardons of some of them.

“If we’re gonna pursue fraud, Mr. Secretary, it has to be across the board,” Neal said. “We want an even-handed approach.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas, grilled Kennedy over fraud in the ACA marketplaces. The administration reinstated hundreds of marketplace agents and brokers suspected of fraud even as it touted fraud as a reason to cut spending

“Have there been guardrails that have been put in place to ensure those 850 agents don’t continue to commit fraud?” Doggett asked.

Kennedy said he “would have to check on that” and added he wasn’t sure why they were reinstated.

Kennedy told lawmakers he is “ending the era of federal policies that fueled this chronic disease epidemic — and replacing them with policies that put the health of the American people first.”

The health secretary pointed to deals negotiated with drugmakers to lower prices and insurers to ease up on prior authorization practices that can make it cumbersome for patients to get drugs or services. He also touted new dietary guidelines which stress whole foods, full-fat dairy and protein and discourage processed foods.

“We flipped the food pyramid upside down — and sent a clear message to the American

people: Eat real food,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy will appear before the House Appropriations Health Subcommittee later Thursday and before several other committees next week, including the Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

When thanked by Rep. Michelle Fischbach for taking the time to testify before Ways and Means, Kennedy responded, “My staff did not tell me I had a choice.”