A present trial is an official continuing that’s performed primarily for propaganda functions reasonably than a tribunal looking for reality. That is what the Senate Finance Committee hearing immediately on the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because the secretary of the Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS) mainly amounted to. The committee’s Republicans functioned largely as enthusiastic cheerleaders whereas the Democrats, for probably the most half, absolutely embraced their roles as zealous disparagers.
The senators’ statements and, to the extent they have been really pursued, the questions targeted on Kennedy’s lengthy profession as an anti-vaccine campaigner, his function as a fierce and richly rewarded litigant in opposition to prescription drug firms, his longstanding pro-choice views on abortion, and his ignorance of recondite intricacies of accessing well being care beneath the $900 billion and $1 trillion Medicaid and Medicare packages, respectively.
In his opening assertion Kennedy declared, “The very first thing I’ve executed each morning for the previous 20 years is to get on my knees and pray to God that He would put me ready to finish the persistent illness epidemic and to assist America’s kids.” He promised that beneath his path, HHS would “take away monetary conflicts of curiosity from our businesses,” and deploy “trustworthy, unbiased gold customary science” in making selections. Gold customary science means, he mentioned, amongst different issues, the replication of analysis research as a approach to examine the validity of findings. He commendably advocated “radical transparency” at HHS as a approach to restore People’ belief in public well being businesses.
Up to now, so good.
However let’s undertake Kennedy’s “I am simply asking questions” fashion of discourse. Is it actually credible {that a} man who has constructed a lot of his profession on questioning the security and efficacy of vaccines and founded the nation’s main anti-vaccine activist group has all of a sudden turn into “pro-vaccine”? As proof of his newly burnished pro-vaccine bona fides, in his opening assertion, Kennedy declared, “I imagine that vaccines performed a crucial function in well being care. All of my children are vaccinated.” He, nonetheless, added what quantities to a sly caveat, “I am pro-safety.” Extra on that final declare shortly.
Regarding his children’ vaccinations, Kennedy is partaking in what quantities to be a little bit of revisionist historical past. As Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) subsequently identified, Kennedy mentioned in a 2020 Kids’s Well being Protection podcast—the anti-vaccine advocacy group he based—that if he may again in time, he wouldn’t have his kids vaccinated. “I’d do something for that. I’d pay something to have the ability to try this,” he mentioned.
After stating the contradiction, Wyden requested, “Are you mendacity to Congress immediately while you say that you simply’re pro-vaccine, or did you lie on all these podcasts?” Solely asking questions right here.
Simply precisely what does Kennedy imply when he says he’s “pro-safety” with respect to vaccines? Take the case of human papillomavirus (HPV), which is the chief cause of cervical most cancers in ladies and a leading cause of head and neck cancers in each sexes. Scientific trials present that HPV vaccines are nearly 100 percent efficient in stopping the form of persistent infections that result in most cancers. Up to now 135 million doses of HPV vaccines have been administered to about 39 percent of youngsters (15 million or so) ages 9 to 17 in america. The legislation agency for which Kennedy has consulted represents 200 cases of alleged harm from Merck’s HPV vaccine. Making the heroic assumption that trial attorneys are disinterested purveyors of reality and that these circumstances are literally associated to the vaccine, the implied charge of vaccination harm out of 80 million doses is 1 in 400,000.
Let’s evaluate that to the probabilities of a lady getting cervical most cancers. The excellent news is that as a result of elevated screening, cervical cancer incidence has been falling, however it’s nonetheless at 7 per 100,000 and the loss of life charge is 2.2 per 100,000 ladies. Even higher information is that for the reason that introduction of HPV vaccines the cervical most cancers charge in younger ladies (the group most certainly to have been vaccinated) has dropped by round half.
The Vaccine Antagonistic Occasion Reporting System recorded round 2,500 critical occasions after Gardasil vaccination, which yields a charge of harm of 16 out of 100,000. That compares to a rate of injuries for 5- to 14-year-olds handled in hospital emergency rooms for soccer at 348 per 100,000; golf at 20 per 100,000; fishing at 27 per 100,000; swimming 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 harm charge of 20 per 100,000 is extra harmful than getting a vaccine that forestalls most cancers.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), tried to probe Kennedy’s relationship with the Kids’s Well being Protection (CHD) anti-vaccination group. The senator displayed onesies offered for the final a number of months by CHD emblazoned “UNVAXXED, UNAFRAID” and “NO VAX, NO PROBLEM.”
Noting that Kennedy now says that he’s pro-vaccine, the senator challenged him to get CHD to take the product off the market. “Senator, I’ve no energy over that group. I’m not a part of it. I’ve resigned from the board,” responded Kennedy, stating once more that he’s “supportive of vaccines.” Remember the fact that Kennedy formally resigned as chairman of CHD’s board solely final month.
With respect to Kennedy’s doable conflicts of curiosity, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) had some extent. She started by noting that Kennedy had mentioned that he would “slam shut the revolving door between authorities businesses and the businesses they regulate.” She then requested if he would decide to not accepting compensation from a drug firm, hospital system, or well being insurer for at the least 4 years after he was now not HHS Secretary. He mentioned, sure. Warren counseled him, noting that “each American has the best to know that each choice you make as our primary well being officer is to assist them and to not make cash for your self sooner or later.”
She then turned to Kennedy’s ongoing monetary relationship with a law firm that’s pursuing lawsuits alleging accidents from the HPV vaccine Gardasil (see above). The agency has paid out $2.5 million to Kennedy up to now. To make sure, that relationship has been disclosed and waived by way of by the related authorities ethics oversight authorities. Warren, nonetheless, famous that Kennedy will get 10 p.c of no matter sums the lawsuits get hold of. She then urged that as HHS secretary, Kennedy may considerably affect selections about vaccines and thus presumably profit from lawsuits stemming from these selections. She requested him to decide to not taking any compensation for such lawsuits for 4 years after he’s now not secretary. Kennedy refused to say that he would sever his ties to the presumably profitable lawsuits, replying, “I’ll adjust to all moral tips.”
What about Kennedy’s longstanding and ardent pro-choice views? “In 2023, you got here to New Hampshire and mentioned, ‘I am pro-choice, I do not suppose the federal government has any enterprise telling folks what they’ll or can’t do to their physique,'” Sen. Maggie Hassan (D–N.H.) pointed. “So, you mentioned that, proper?”
“Sure,” Kennedy replied.
Hassan continued, “Mr. Kennedy, I am confused. You clearly said previously that bodily autonomy is considered one of your core values. The query is, do you stand for that worth or not? When did you resolve to promote out the values you have had your entire life with a view to be given energy by President Trump?”
Because the listening to made clear, that energy features a “security” evaluate of the abortion remedy mifepristone. Treatment abortions accounted for 63 percent of all abortions within the U.S. in 2023 and their security profile is comparable to scientific abortions. “President Trump has requested me to review the security of mifepristone,” Kennedy mentioned. “He has not but taken a stand on methods to regulate it. No matter he does, I’ll implement these insurance policies.”
One space of considerably bipartisan settlement was that “Massive Pharma” is unhealthy. Simply how unhealthy? Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R–Tenn.) requested Kennedy about “over-medicating” younger folks. Kennedy responded that round 15 p.c of American youngsters have used consideration deficit hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD) medicines, probably citing a current Nationwide Institute for Drug Abuse survey. He then went to additional rattling drug firms by asserting, “A current examine discovered that pharmaceutical medicine are the third-largest reason for loss of life in our nation after coronary heart assaults and cancers. They don’t seem to be making us more healthy.” Kennedy is most certainly referencing a fringe 2014 study by Danish researcher Peter Gøtzsche. Apparently, Mark Makary, Trump’s nominee for commissioner of the Meals and Drug Administration coauthored a 2016 evaluation claiming that medical error (not pharmaceuticals) was the third-leading reason for loss of life within the U.S. Subsequent analyses argued that its claims have been primarily based on dubious epidemiological extrapolations.
Lastly, Wyden ended by dismissing Kennedy’s responses on vaccines as a “phrase salad” and by stating that the intricacies of Medicaid and Medicare evidently stumped the HHS nominee.
In his resignation letter to the anti-vaccination group he based, Kennedy wrote: “One in every of my guiding ideas has been and can proceed to be what was greatest mentioned by a thinker: ‘All reality passes by way of three states. First, it’s ridiculed. Second, it’s violently opposed. Third, it’s accepted as self-evident.'” So having been ridiculed, and violently opposed, are we now on the stage the place the reality is that it’s self-evident that Kennedy mustn’t turn into Secretary of the Division of Well being and Human Companies?
As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D–R.I.) pleaded, “I hope my colleagues will say to the president out of 330 million People, we will do higher than this.”
