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\n

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opened his confirmation hearings to lead the Department of Health and Human Services by going on the offense, saying he is not anti-vaccine, despite years of sowing doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.<\/p>\n

\u201cNews reports have claimed that I\u2019m anti-vaccine or anti-industry,\u201d he said. \u201cI am neither.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Kennedy said he was not opposed to vaccines, a woman in the hearing room stood up and screamed “You lie \u2026 do no harm,” before she was removed.<\/p>\n

The issue is likely to be central to the hearing, with ranking member Ron Wyden<\/a> (D-Ore.) suggesting in his opening statement that his history makes the nominee unfit to lead HHS.<\/p>\n

If confirmed, Kennedy would have significant power<\/a> over federal vaccine policy. He could replace the people who advise the government on vaccine policy and direct changes to the childhood immunization schedule.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has a long history of arguing that vaccines are dangerous, despite overwhelming scientific consensus to the contrary. He has said the measles vaccine causes autism, the polio vaccine might have \u201ckilled many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did\u201d and the Covid shot was \u201cthe deadliest vaccine ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nominee made millions from books critical of vaccination and at his nonprofit, Children\u2019s Health Defense, which has suggested childhood vaccinations are connected to several developmental problems, despite clinical trials that didn\u2019t find any correlation.<\/p>\n

But Kennedy, despite years of arguing against vaccinations, has changed his tune<\/a> leading up to Wednesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans have said Kennedy assured them that he doesn\u2019t want to take vaccines away and only wants to ensure they\u2019re safe \u2014 and that the public has enough information about them. Kennedy reiterated that case in his opening statement. But even people in Kennedy\u2019s circle are worried about him limiting access<\/a> to or trust in vaccination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opened his confirmation hearings to lead the Department of Health and Human Services by going on the offense, saying he is not anti-vaccine, despite years of sowing doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. \u201cNews reports have claimed that I\u2019m anti-vaccine or anti-industry,\u201d he said. \u201cI am neither.\u201d When Kennedy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}