U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper took a nonconfrontational approach to questioning Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, in a Thursday hearing at the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.
The hearing followed Kennedy’s appearance Wednesday at a contentious hearing with the Senate Committee on Finance, where Sen. Michael Bennet grilled him on his past statements on abortion and his reported conspiracy theories. Only the Finance Committee will vote on whether to advance Kennedy’s nomination to the full chamber, but that vote has not yet been scheduled, according to Reuters.
Republicans seemed to support Kennedy at the Wednesday hearing, but Bill Cassidy, R-La., who sits on both committees, said at the Thursday hearing that Kennedy’s history of questioning vaccines was concerning to him. Republicans have a one-seat majority on the Finance Committee, so if all Democrats and Cassidy vote against the nomination, it will not ever reach the full Senate.
Like the day prior, Kennedy repeatedly said he supports vaccines at the Thursday hearing, but he refused to say that childhood vaccines do not cause autism. The link between childhood vaccines and autism has been widely disproved. Kennedy founded the anti-vaccine group the Children’s Health Defense but resigned as chairman in December.
“News reports and many in the hearing yesterday (Wednesday) have claimed that I'm anti-vaccine and anti-industry,” Kennedy said. “Well, I'm neither.”
Hickenlooper said he was still “very concerned” about Kennedy’s history opposing vaccines but began by asking Kennedy about Trump’s commitment to continuing a program that allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
“I've spoken to President Trump about negotiations,” Kennedy said. “He’s absolutely committed to negotiating lower drug prices.”
On prescription drug prices, Trump rescinded a 2022 Biden Administration executive order that directed the HHS to explore other ways to reduce drug costs for Medicare and Medicaid patients. That does not affect the price caps set by the Inflation Reduction Act, like the $35 cap on insulin for Medicare patients.
Hickenlooper followed up by asking Kennedy about preventing chronic illness in America, something Kennedy has said will be one of his main objectives if confirmed.
Kennedy responded that “we should be moving to value-based care, which includes prevention,” and that the agencies under HHS should “identify the toxins that are contributing to diseases and eliminate them.”
On mifepristone, the abortion pill, Kennedy repeated that he would enforce the president’s policy. Kennedy said at Wednesday’s hearing that Trump had asked him to investigate the safety of the drug, which was originally approved in 2000.
Hickenlooper pressed Kennedy for assurance that, if there were further studies on the drug, he would “make sure that there's no bias, to the best of our human ability, to twist those results in any way to support that policy?”
Kennedy answered broadly, saying that he would commit to allowing the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee to help choose researchers and approve protocols for studies at the National Institutes of Health.
“All I want is good science, and I would love input from this committee on any study that we do,” Kennedy said. “There's many ways that studies are flawed, and you can correct those at the outset in a lot of ways. So absolutely I will work with you to make sure that it's science that you're satisfied with and I'm satisfied with.”
Hickenlooper replied, “I'll hold you to it,” before moving to question Kennedy about his past of doubting vaccines and promoting conspiracy theories. He asked about Kennedy’s claim that Lyme disease was a militarily engineered bioweapon, something Bennet had pressed him on the previous day.
“Isn't that reckless?” he asked. “Aren't you then promoting this anti-science, this conspiracy about Lyme disease in this case, but the same thing about some of these vaccine issues?”
Kennedy replied that he “never endorsed the issue,” only that he said “it's out there.”
In response to a question from Bennet the previous day, Kennedy said he “probably did” say that Lyme disease was a militarily engineered bioweapon.
Kathryn Squyres is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ksquyres@durangoherald.com.
