RFK Jr. Confirmation Hearing: Pushes Back on Chronic Disease, Autism and Agency Corruption
(The Perimeter) During yesterday’s Senate confirmation hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decided he wasn't going to just lie down and take it. During his second U.S. Senate hearing for the HHS gig, RFK Jr. took a flamethrower to the cozy relationship between Congress and Big Pharma, suggesting that the members grilling him might have their hands a little too deep in the cookie jar.
Fresh off a verbal tussle with Bernie Sanders about the fashion choices of onesies on the Children’s Health Defense website, Kennedy was back in the Capitol, this time in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where Sanders sits high in the pecking order.
Kennedy didn't pull any punches. Looking Senator Sanders straight in the eye, he said, "Corruption isn't just lurking in the hallways of federal agencies, it's sitting right here in Congress too. Almost all of you on this panel, including you, Senator, are swimming in millions from the pharmaceutical industry."
This wasn't just your run-of-the-mill Capitol Hill drama; this was RFK Jr. turning the tables on the establishment, in a room where the air is thick with the stench of campaign contributions. It's like watching a magician revealing how the trick is done, only the trick here is how policy gets made in Washington with a little help from Big Pharma's checkbook.
So, while Congress was supposed to be grilling RFK Jr. on his views about vaccines and the chronic disease epidemic, he ended up putting them under the microscope. And in this game of political chess, Kennedy might just have checkmated a few senators with a bold, if controversial, claim about where the real corruption lies.
This was one of several contentious moments during today’s meeting, which also focused on vaccine safety, the chronic disease epidemic and conflicts of interest in scientific research.
Kennedy frequently questioned the effectiveness of U.S. public health agencies in addressing the chronic health epidemic, which he said has come at a great cost both in terms of fatalities and the epidemic’s economic burden.
“The focus is on infectious disease, and we almost altogether ignore chronic disease, which causes 92% of the deaths in this country,” Kennedy said. Noting that the U.S. had a disproportionate percentage of COVID-19-related deaths during the pandemic, Kennedy said it is because “we are the sickest people on earth.”
Kennedy pledged to reverse this trend, if confirmed as HHS secretary, by emphasizing transparency and “good science.”
‘I’m Pro-good Science’
Unlike yesterday’s hearing, today’s hearing focused extensively on Kennedy’s views on vaccines and vaccine safety. Kennedy responded to claims he is “anti-vaccine” and “anti-industry.”
“I’m neither. I’m pro-safety. I’m pro-good science,” Kennedy said. “We should always follow the evidence no matter what it says.”
Kennedy said he wouldn’t “impose” his opinions on HHS scientists. Instead, he would support examining “all the data” by empowering HHS scientists to do their job.
“We will have the best vaccine standards, with safety studies,” Kennedy said.
Much of the discussion about vaccines centered on rising autism rates, with Kennedy noting that they have increased from 1 in 10,000 to as high as 1 in 34, calling this an “explosion” that public health agencies have long overlooked.
Kennedy referred to a recent peer-reviewed study of 47,000 9-year-olds to respond to claims by members of the committee that the link between autism and vaccines has been definitively debunked. The study found that autism rates were higher among vaccinated children and increased as the number of vaccinations grew.
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“Why don’t we know what’s causing this epidemic?” Kennedy asked. “Why hasn’t CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] been looking at other hypotheses to determine the etiology of why we’ve had this dramatic 1,000% increase in this disease that is destroying our kids?”
Several members of the committee openly agreed with Kennedy’s stance on autism.
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“1-in-36. If that’s not a pandemic, then what is?” asked Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). “Can any of you guys with a straight face say that we shouldn’t look at every aspect to what we’re putting in our kids, be it from the food to the vaccines?”
“I just want to follow the science where it leads, without presupposition,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
Kennedy also addressed the COVID-19 vaccines, stating that mandates and a lack of public trust in their safety have contributed to waning vaccination rates.
“If we want uptake of vaccines, we need a trustworthy government,” Kennedy said. “That’s what I want to restore to the American people and the vaccine program. I want people to know if the government says something, it’s true. It’s not manipulative.”
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Kennedy responded to claims by some committee members that the COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives, pointing out that this statement can’t be made definitively because public health agencies “don’t have a good surveillance system.”
Kennedy cited a 2021 lawsuit he filed against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its approval of the COVID-19 vaccines, as an example of deficiencies in the safety testing by public health agencies.
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“I filed that lawsuit after CDC recommended the vaccine for 6-year-old children without any evidence that it would benefit them and without testing,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy said he would “support the vaccine program” — but by ensuring “that we have gold-standard, evidence-based science.”
Kennedy suggested that agency capture and the entanglement of Big Pharma with drug regulation and safety, have adversely affected Americans’ health outcomes.
“Prescription drugs are now the third-largest cause of death in our country … Americans are getting less and less healthy. Seventy percent of pharmaceutical profits globally come from our country, which has 4.2% of the world’s population. We’re the only country that allows full-scale pharmaceutical ads on TV,” Kennedy said.
“A generation of kids” has been “written off” as a result of factors such as “misplaced institutional loyalty” and “entanglements with the drug companies,” Kennedy said.
See this.
“Our country will sink beneath a sea of desperation and debt if we don’t change course and ask the fundamental question, ‘Why are healthcare costs so high in the first place?’ The obvious answer to that question is chronic disease,” Kennedy said.
According to Kennedy, “a very little, low percentage” of the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is devoted to studying chronic disease — and the toxins that cause them. He vowed to change this if confirmed.
“We are allowing these companies — because of their influence over this body, over our regulatory agencies, to mass-poison American children. And that’s wrong. It needs to end,” Kennedy said. “The president’s pledge is not to make some Americans healthy again, but to make all Americans healthy again.”
Kennedy’s message drew the support of some of the committee’s members including Paul, who in a post on X said, “RFK Jr. has my vote.” Despite his contentious series of exchanges with Kennedy, Sanders also expressed support for Kennedy’s agenda to “Make America Healthy Again.”
According to Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel for CHD, today’s hearing was “a courtesy hearing.” Yesterday’s hearing before the Senate Finance Committee “is the decisive vote that will take the final vote to the Senate floor.”
Kennedy will then require a simple majority vote in the Senate to be confirmed as HHS secretary. If confirmed, Kennedy will lead a department that oversees 13 public health agencies, including the CDC, FDA and NIH.
