At the end of summer, the congress is often sleepy and slowly returns to work. But last week was an exception. In Capitol Hill, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrived and the controversial secretary in health and social services launched a calculation on public health in America.
During a hearing before the Senate committee financed Thursday, Kennedy defended Trump administration policies: “We, at HHS, adopt a unique passage from a disease system, to a real health care system that addresses the deep causes of chronic diseases,” he said.
The temperatures were hot at the hearing. Senator Michael Bennet (D-COLO) said: “It is not a podcast. It is the health of the American people that is at stake here.”
The Democrats reprimanded Kennedy, perhaps the deepest member of President Donald Trump’s office. Senator Tina Smith (d-minn.) Asked Kennedy: “When were you lining, sir-when you told this committee that you were not anti-vacuum? Or when you told Americans that there was no safe and efficient vaccine?”
To which Kennedy replied: “The two things are true.”
There were Republicans who offered wide support for Kennedy. Senator Mike Crapo (R-ISA.) Said: “President Trump and secretary Kennedy made a firm commitment to bring America again healthy.”
However, some Republicans have notably pushed Kennedy on the way in which his long -standing opposition to the mandates of vaccines affects the policy and on the doubts of Kennedy as to the safety of the various vaccines. Senator John Barasso (R-Wyo.) Said: “There are real concerns that safe and proven vaccines like measles, such as hepatitis B and others, could be in danger.”
The display of the committee room had been preparing for days. On August 27, the government announced New restrictions on the eligibility for coche vaccinations. This decision prompted some Health organizations warn Politics could cause confusion.
The same day, Trump’s White House said that Susan Monarez, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who had just been confirmed by the Senate a few weeks earlier, was dismissed.
Trump’s White House resulted in the radical changes of Secretary Kennedy and the dismissal. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said about Monarez: “She was not aligned with President Trump’s mission to make America in good health”.
In a statement to “Sunday morning”, the spokesman for the White House, Kush Desai, said: “The White House maintains all the confidence in the direction of secretary Kennedy in HHS to advance the agenda of President Trump. The second Trump administration is based on this file and this experience to restore the science of golden standards as the principle of the decision of health to HHS to make America in good health.”
In an editorial of the Wall Street Journal, Susan Monarez wrote that she had been in a hurry to “compromise science itself” – and to sign people who “have publicly expressed an antivaccine rhetoric”.
This turbulence put Kennedy, who was an ally of Trump in last year’s campaign, under the spotlight.
When asked if there had been pressure in the Republican Party to stand near Kennedy, the Kentucky Republican Senator, Rand Paul, said: “No one has put me pressure or never called me. I say to myself. And these are long -standing beliefs.”
Paul, an ophthalmologist, supports Kennedy, and blame scientists – not skeptics – for concerns about vaccine safety. “All the doubt about the vaccines is – there could be a doubt coming from those who do not want you to take a vaccine, but a little doubt comes from the establishment which, I believe, is authoritarian in nature,” said Paul. “You don’t care to tell yourself what to do. You should just do what you are told. We know better than you.”
But some who have worked at the highest level fight against criticism and sound an alarm.
“An important distrust of vaccines”
Four CDC managers – Doctors Jennifer Layden, Daniel Jernigan, Debra Houry and Demeter Daskalakis – All have resigned in recent daysSome quoting vaccine policies against secretary Kennedy, others quoting the upheaval of the CDC, which provides crucial health advice on a national level.
And the four expressed concerns about their confidence that results in CDC information on vaccines and vaccine safety data. “This is why I left; I am very worried,” said Dr. Daskalakis. “We have already crossed the line. The recommendations cocovated for children and pregnant women are completely based on any evidence on which global experts agreed.”
I asked, “You know that secretary Kennedy would repel on it; what would you say?”
“Ah, easy,” replied Daskalakis. “The recommendation is that there should not be healthy children who get the vaccine; it should only be in children with underlying conditions. Children who have six months, 56% of them who are admitted to the hospital do not have an underlying condition. Thus, by not offering the vaccine to parents who are ready to do so, children who could have been protected are not.”
Ask how he labeling Kennedy and his vision of vaccines, Dr. Daniel Jernigan said: “I think he has an important distrust of vaccines. I don’t know that he drives a thousand questions, calling upon questioning data that has been accepted for years, and this by calling to question Bring Vaccine.”
Dr. Debra Houry said that when Kennedy started in HHS, “I read his books. I wanted to better understand his research and history. So we were open, you know, to have these discussions.”
In an additional statement to “Sunday morning”, the White House spokesman Kush Desai said:
“The” Americans “are” American and stifle non -accounting “health officials” and the Americans and stifle non -accounting “health officials”.
Asked what would be the cost for the Americans of doctors and other civil servants leaving the CDC, Dr. Jennifer Layden said: “We are talking about all the public health infrastructure of our nation. And I think that when we start to see (and we are going to) epidemics that normally do not occur – no more flambes of food, epidemics of the Legionlle – do not happen – people who do not occur – people do not occur normally – more will Start worrying about it. This can take time to see some of these negative consequences, but this is what the training effect of all this will do through our country. “”
In fact, the training effects are already apparent.
“Diseases do not obey borders”
Just last week, the Florida Republican Governor announced its intention to eliminate all the requirements of the childhood vaccine.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Governors of the West Coast who oppose the policies of secretary Kennedy quickly advance To protect vaccine programs in their states.
I asked Dr. ATUL GAWANDE, a surgeon who served in the Biden administration: “What is the consequence for the country when you have such differentiation? It is broken.”
“It is seriously broken down, and I am very worried about it,” replied Gawandea, “because diseases do not obey borders.
For Gawande, Kennedy’s actions could not only upset federal agencies, but also the position of America in global health. “There is still no consensus, for sure, among our own medical community,” he said, “but we have generally been able to come together enough to be able to say:` `This is where we can make sure that we need the most vaccination-to make sure that we do not abandon the abandonment of the immunization. Saved the important world.”
Later this month, the CDC vaccine advisory advice – Now with named Kennedy – will meet to decide on future guidelines.
In the end, Gawande says: “Confidence helps suppose doubt.”
But, I asked: “Is confidence is always possible in this environment?”
“Confidence is always possible,” said Gawande, “but it is not possible while we have managers who actively lead chaos, who actively try to create uncertainty and decompose confidence. But in the end, people must choose the leaders who have the demonstration assessment of best results.
History produced by Ed Forgonson and Jack Weingart. Publisher: Carol Ross.
