WASHINGTON – Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) on Tuesday tore into Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for his many years of lies in regards to the security and effectiveness of vaccines, saying she is going to blame him each time somebody dies from a vaccine-preventable illness on his watch.
“You could have lied to the American folks,” Schrier, who’s a pediatrician, charged as Kennedy sat silently earlier than a Home committee. “You could have lied to folks about vaccines for 20 years.”
“And I additionally wish to be clear that I’ll lay all accountability for each demise from a vaccine-preventable sickness at your toes,” she stated.
Here’s a clip of their alternate.
Kennedy, who has an extended historical past of peddling harmful misinformation about vaccines, was testifying earlier than the Home panel about his company’s finances request when Schrier started describing what occurs when unvaccinated infants and youngsters get sick with issues like measles, bacterial meningitis or whooping cough.
“Have you ever ever handled measles?” she requested.
Kennedy replied, “No.”
“Nicely, I’ve. Let me let you know how depressing it’s,” stated the Democratic congresswoman. “These youngsters have excessive fevers, struggling to breathe and they’re crying. They endure. The nice information is there’s a vaccine to stop it.”
Schrier went on, describing infants within the emergency room “so sick,” “floppy” and with excessive fevers as a result of they’ve bacterial meningitis. She recalled treating one child who got here down with whooping cough, who was weeks outdated and had “stopped respiration and turned blue.”
“Let me let you know how scared these dad and mom had been,” she stated to Kennedy. “I’ve handled a bunch of older youngsters with it. They cough so arduous they vomit. They run out of air. They break ribs. In case you don’t catch it earlier than two weeks, antibiotics don’t even work.”
“You realize what‘s nice? There’s a vaccine that forestalls this,” Schrier stated. “In fact, right here’s the factor: Vaccines solely work for those who truly give them. And we all know your report on this.”
Kennedy’s report contains pushing the debunked declare that vaccines trigger autism. He’s floated weird conspiracy theories about COVID-19 being “ethnically focused” to spare Jewish and Chinese language folks. He’s referenced the Holocaust when speaking about vaccines and public well being mandates.
As HHS secretary, he has stated that getting vaccinated is a private alternative as a substitute of citing science-based proof that vaccines are secure, efficient and strongly really helpful. He’s referred to as for reducing billions in funding for a program that gives vaccines to kids in low-income households, and he directed the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention to now not advocate COVID vaccine boosters for kids and pregnant ladies.
“We imagine Sen. Cassidy greater than we belief you relating to vaccinations.”
– Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.)
Throughout Tuesday’s listening to, Schrier additionally accused Kennedy of pulling a quick one on Sen. Invoice Cassidy (R-La.), who solely voted to substantiate Kennedy to his present put up as a result of he stated he received assurances that the HHS secretary wouldn’t make adjustments to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of medical and public well being consultants that gives suggestions on vaccine steering for varied illnesses.
Kennedy fired all 17 members of that panel earlier this month, saying in a assertion that the transfer was about “prioritizing the restoration of public belief above any particular pro- or anti-vaccine agenda” with a plan to exchange the panelists. His actions inevitably imply that, going ahead, HHS’s steering on vaccine security might be rooted in misinformation and views from exterior the scientific neighborhood, one vaccine coverage knowledgeable advised HuffPost.
“Did you mislead Sen. Cassidy if you advised him you wouldn’t change this panel of consultants?” she requested.
“I by no means made that settlement,” Kennedy replied.
After some backwards and forwards, Schrier stated she merely doesn’t imagine him.
“I simply wish to let you know that for many of us sitting right here proper now, we imagine Sen. Cassidy greater than we belief you relating to vaccinations,” she stated.
