A vaccine skeptic is leading public health in the US. Today, RFK Jr. faced questions

0:00It was a tense three hours as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before a Senate committee. Criticism came from senators on both sides of the aisle, with a particular focus on vaccine policy. You promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I've grown deeply concerned. I would say effectively we're denying people vaccine. I get wrong. I'm asking the questions for Mr. Kennedy on behalf of parents and schools and teachers all over the United States of America who deserve so much better than your leadership. That was Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming, Republican Tom Tillis of North Carolina and Democrat Michael Bennett of Colorado.

0:41Just a taste of the hearing today. Inside the public health community, federal workers are also speaking out. I swore an oath. Even if I have resigned, I'm going to hold by that oath for the rest of my life. And that is to speak out when I believe the Constitution and the American people are in jeopardy. That's Dr. Elizabeth Soda. She's one of more than a thousand current and former federal health workers who signed a letter urging Health Secretary Kennedy to resign. She was a physician with the CDC's National Center for Emerging Enzonotic Infectious Diseases until her resignation earlier this week.

1:16I think his stance on vaccines is one very clear example of how he is politicizing the important public health action of vaccines, and it's going to have very serious consequences for all Americans at this point. Consider this. A vaccine skeptic is in charge of the nation's health care system. He's using that position to radically change vaccine policy. How might Congress and individual states step in?

1:48From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro.

1:56It's Consider This from NPR. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy testified in the Senate, and as expected, the hearing was fiery. You're making things up to scare people, and it's a lie. I don't think, I don't, with respect, I do not think I'm the one making things up. You are lying right now, Senator. That exchange was with Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire. Kennedy faced questions from both Democrats and Republicans, especially about his vaccine policies. NPR Health Policy correspondent Selena Simmons-Duffin watched the hearing closely. Hi, Selena. Hi, Ari. There's been chaos recently at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the firing of the recently confirmed CDC director.

2:37So what did we learn about that today? Well, right as the hearing was beginning, Susan Menores, the CDC director who was fired, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. And this is just a few days after Kennedy published his own op-ed there. Kennedy in the hearing confirmed that he asked her to fire career CDC scientists and Menores refused, but he also contradicted her account. Here is Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat from Massachusetts.

3:16You can hear Warren and others in the room respond to that with, what? He went on to accuse Menares of lying. I asked Menares' attorney if she had any response to this version of events, but I haven't heard back. Vaccines came up a bit in that clip of tape you just played, and they were a major topic of the hearing. What was discussed? Yeah, so one really interesting line of questioning from both sides of the aisle was about Operation Warp Speed. President Trump has described this as one of his greatest accomplishments. It involved the government and private companies working together to bring a new vaccine to market for this emerging virus in record time.

3:54Kennedy praised Trump throughout the hearing, but he struggled to square that praise with his recent actions as secretary. Give us an example. What do you mean? Well, this year, because the FDA's approval of the COVID-19 booster limits who can get it, there's all this confusion about how the fall rollout is going to go. Kennedy in the hearing refused to acknowledge that that does, in effect, limit who has access to the vaccines. And he also refused to concede that COVID vaccines saved millions of lives, which is something there's scientific consensus about. Here is an exchange with Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana.

4:28He's a physician and he told Kennedy it surprised him that here he was praising Operation Warp Speed after working as an attorney to restrict access to that vaccine. It also surprises me because you've canceled, or HHAs did, but apparently under your direction,$500 million in contracts using the mRNA vaccine platform that was critical to Operation Warp Speed. Again, an accomplishment that I think President Trump should get a Nobel Prize for. Now, Selena, that's striking because Senator Cassidy cast one of the key votes to confirm Kennedy as health secretary. Yeah, that's right. But that's only after Kennedy made lots of promises not to drastically change federal vaccine policy.

5:13Cassidy supports vaccines. He's a physician. He said he's seen how they spare people suffering and save lives. But Kennedy has now gone and broken a lot of those promises. And Cassidy has been reticent to publicly hold him to account. Cassidy and several other Republican senators in this hearing were critical of Kennedy's anti-vaccine posture, but they didn't go so far as to join their Democratic colleagues in calling for him to resign. But apart from Congress, we saw this letter yesterday signed by more than a thousand HHS employees and public health organizations calling for Kennedy's resignation.

5:46Any news on that front? There are no signs that Kennedy plans to resign. The question is whether President Trump will continue to back him. So far, it seems like, yes, Trump still supports him and is giving him leeway to upend federal health policy in all sorts of different ways. NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin, thank you. You're welcome. Now, in response to concerns over federal leadership, some states are setting up their own coronavirus vaccine policies. That means your ability to get a COVID shot this fall might depend on where you live. NPR's Ping Huang has more. Washington state is banding together with its neighbors to create a West Coast Health Alliance.

6:25Dennis Worsham, Washington's health secretary, says it's a preemptive move. We're seeing something happen that we're concerned and we're not going to wait to see how it plays out. Those concerns include staff and budget cuts at federal health agencies, the firing of prominent doctors from vaccine advisory committees, and the firing of the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The tipping point came last week, Worsham says, when the Food and Drug Administration put limits on who's eligible for the fall COVID shot. We as an alliance will work together to review the data that is being put out in order to make recommendations for the people here in the state of Washington, Oregon, and California.

7:04Dr. Erica Pahn is director of the California Department of Public Health. I'm sad that we are in this place that we have to do this. But the reason they're doing it, she says, is that vaccines do a great job of keeping people healthy. Vaccines are one of the most important public health interventions in our lifetimes after sanitation. And they have saved millions of lives. And we want to make sure we continue to do that. And the advice from the federal government under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is starting to diverge from those of professional medical groups. We do have concerns that access and recommendations for safe and effective vaccines could change from the federal level.

7:43The CDC's current Vaccine Advisory Committee has not yet weighed in on who should get COVID vaccines this fall. In New Mexico, the delay has prompted Gina DeBlasi, the Cabinet Secretary for Health, to issue a public health order to make the vaccines widely available at pharmacies. The vaccines are anticipated to be received in the state this month. We just want to make sure that we're ready to go and able to serve New Mexicans. DeBlasi says the demand has been highest for those 65 and up. But we want to make it available for those that are in high-risk populations or those that are caring for individuals that are in that high-risk group.

8:23Massachusetts, which is leading a public health collaboration in the Northeast, has announced that it's requiring insurers to cover vaccines the state recommends. While states with Democratic governors have been zigging to protect vaccine access, the Republican state of Florida has zagged. Yesterday, at a press conference, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Latipo called COVID vaccines poison and said requiring them echoes slavery. Who am I as a government or anyone else or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body? Latipo announced that Florida will be working to end all vaccine mandates in the state.

9:01His office did not respond to an interview request from NPR. Dr. Susan Consagra with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials says many state laws are tied to what the CDC's advisory committee recommends. While there's always been some variation state-by-state in vaccine laws, what we're seeing now is an amplification of that. Given the confusion and instability on the federal level, some states are looking to other sources for their vaccine recommendations. Consagra says this can be confusing for consumers. Talk to your provider, get your information from a trusted source around vaccines, and make sure you understand where to go and your insurance coverage as well as we navigate this changing landscape.

9:43Later this month, state health officials will be watching closely when the CDC's revamped Vaccine Advisory Committee meets to vote on recommendations for COVID, hepatitis B, and some other vaccines. Ping Huang, NPR News. This episode was produced by Catherine Fink, Mark Rivers, and Manuela Lopez-Restrepo with audio engineering by Ted Meebane. It was edited by Janaki Mehta, Diane Weber, and Scott Hensley. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

10:15It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.