WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. challenged the record of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the COVID-19 pandemic and the precipitous rise in chronic disease in the U.S. as he defended his shakeup of the health agency at a Senate hearing Thursday.
“These changes were absolutely necessary to restore the CDC’s role as the world’s gold standard public health with a central mission of protecting Americans from infectious disease,” Kennedy said. “CDC failed that responsibility miserably during COVID when its disastrous and nonsensical policies destroyed small businesses, violated civil liberties, closed our schools and caused generational damage in doing so, masked infants with no science and heightened economic inequality.”
The combative hearing follows Kennedy’s high-profile showdown with former CDC Director Susan Monarez last week. Kennedy ousted Monarez from the post on Aug. 25, less than a month into her tenure, over a dispute about his overhaul of the committee that advises the CDC on vaccine schedules.
In a Senate Finance Committee hearing, Democrats and Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana criticized Kennedy for his actions to remake the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), as well as changes by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to COVID-19 vaccine approvals. They lambasted Kennedy as undermining confidence in vaccines and in established science.
“I’m approaching this as a doctor, not as a senator. I am concerned about children’s health, seniors’ health, all of our health. And I applaud you for joining the president in a call for radical transparency,” said Cassidy, referring to President Donald Trump’s call on Truth Social for COVID vaccine manufacturers to make data more readily available.
Cassidy last week appeared to side with Monarez in her dustup with Kennedy, urging physicians to ignore the ACIP’s recommendations.
Monarez alleged in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published hours before the hearing that Kennedy had pressured her to preapprove the outcome of an ACIP meeting scheduled for Sept. 18-19. Kennedy said that the op-ed amounted to a lie. He denied having a private meeting with her in which he asked her to leave.
Kennedy dismissed criticism of the changes to the ACIP from the American Academy of Pediatrics, pointing to the association’s pharmaceutical ties. Kennedy also cited a 2000 congressional investigation into physicians and scientists serving on the committee with financial stakes in the drugmakers they oversaw.
“I didn’t politicize ACIP, I depoliticized it,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy answered the broader criticism with a scathing referendum of the CDC’s actions during the COVID pandemic and insisted the agency should focus on its original mission of protecting Americans from infectious diseases. Kennedy added the agency requires “new blood” in light of the CDC’s “catastrophically bad judgement” during the pandemic.
“The U.S. is home to 4.2% of the world’s population yet we had nearly 20% of the COVID deaths,” Kennedy said. “The people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving.”
Kennedy also questioned whether the CDC was complacent amid a precipitous rise in rates of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
“CDC’s job was to make sure this didn’t happen,” he said.
Sometimes Kennedy also directly challenged the records of individual senators on the panel, including Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon.
Kennedy accused Wyden of overseeing a rise in childhood chronic disease from a position of influence over American health care.
“Senator you’ve sat in that chair for how long? Twenty, twenty-five years? While the chronic diseases in our children went up to 76%. And you said nothing,” Kennedy said.
Wyden has served on the Finance Committee, which shares jurisdiction over health policy issues, since 1996.
Kennedy also named a litany of HHS priorities addressed since his February confirmation, asserting that his brief tenure has been among the most productive in history on issues ranging from food dyes, baby formula, fluoride in tap water, 7-OH or “gas station heroin,” drug prices, the “GRAS” loophole, reducing animal testing, ending gain-of-function research, FDA drug approvals and ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Kennedy also opened his testimony by expressing sympathy for the family of Dekalb County police officer David Rose who died by gunshot in an attack on CDC headquarters.
.@SecKennedy: “We are ending gain-of-function research, child mutilation, and reducing animal testing. We are addressing cellphone use in schools… sickle cell anemia, Hepatitis C, the East Palestine chemical spill, and many, many others.” pic.twitter.com/wEScTJ9RAJ
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 4, 2025
Pullback Of COVID Vaccines In Perpetuity
Several senators criticized a new FDA framework to require new clinical trial data for annual COVID-19 booster shots for healthy adults and children. Democrats portrayed the move as a betrayal of Kennedy’s promise at confirmation hearings earlier this year to not restrict access to vaccines. People can continue to seek the vaccine off-label, but the HHS actions limit insurance coverage.
Kennedy reminded the panel that two top vaccine regulators at the FDA during the Biden administration, Marion Gruber and Phil Krause, departed the agency in response to pressure to approve a boosters-for-all strategy without this clinical evidence in 2021.
The hearing also occasionally delved into other more contentious topics where Kennedy diverges from many Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Chuck Grassley sought reassurance from Kennedy, a frequent critic of genetically modified crops, synthetic pesticides and their manufacturers, that he would let the U.S. Department of Agriculture lead regulation of agriculture. Kennedy agreed and added that he was working with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins on certain priorities.
Kennedy also alleged the CDC buried evidence of an association between the Mumps, Measles and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism in children, which could land him in hot water with a broader coalition of lawmakers.
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