Senators Grilled R.F.K. Jr. On Vaccines

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a defiant defense of his vaccine policy today during a fiery Senate hearing, responding at times with clear disdain for the senators, public health data and the Centers for Disease Control. Here are five takeaways.

The hearing before the Senate Finance Committee suggested that Kennedy is on uncertain ground even with some Republicans. Several, including two doctors — Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Barrasso of Wyoming — were particularly tough in their questioning, especially when it came to Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism.

Cassidy, who voted to confirm Kennedy on the condition that he wouldn’t disrupt access, said at the hearing: “Effectively, we’re denying people vaccine.”

“You’re wrong,” Kennedy shot back.

The health secretary was there to defend his department’s proposed 2026 budget. But the hearing descended into a free-for-all over Kennedy’s decision to fire the director of the C.D.C. He told senators that he dismissed her because she responded “no” when he asked her if she was “trustworthy.”

In one contentious exchange with Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, Kennedy said he did not know how many Americans had died of Covid and whether the vaccines prevented Covid-related deaths. “The problem is they didn’t have the data,” he said. The senator replied: “You are sitting as secretary of health and human services. How can you be that ignorant?”

Related: Two former leaders of the National Institutes for Health said in whistle-blower complaints that “hostility” toward vaccines had taken hold in the upper ranks of the agency.