Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s nominee to be Health and Human Services secretary, took the hot seat for the second day in a row on Thursday, this time appearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, where he was peppered with questions right off the bat about his position on autism and vaccines.
After listening to Democrats batter Kennedy on this issue, Sen. Rand Paul used his time to advocate for medical freedom and humility in science.
“The discussion over vaccines is so oversimplified and dumbed down that we never really get to real truths and it’s why people up here are so separated from real people at home,” the Kentucky Republican said.
Paul, a physician, argued it breeds distrust among parents when they’re told their one day old infant needs to get the Hepatitis B vaccine, an infection acquired through drug use and sexual intercourse.
He argued there should not be a one-size-fits-all approach to vaccines, explaining that he chose to wait until his children were older to receive the jab and that shouldn’t make him anti-vaccine. In fact, Paul heaped praise on vaccines, calling them a "modern miracle,” but clarified he’s not all-or-nothing on them.
Regarding COVID, he pointed to the wide disparity in health outcomes for the elderly and obese compared to children, noting that no healthy kid died from the disease, so the push to vaccinate across the board doesn’t make sense.
Paul argued there ought to be debates about science, health, medicine, and vaccines, but Democrats aren’t letting them take place.
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“There’s no good science of anything to show what causes autism,” he stated. “We don’t know. It’s a profound disease and I know many moms here and dads who have kids who have autism…but the thing is they saw their kids developing completely normal, maybe speaking 100 words, go to no words at about 15 months of age.
“Now, there isn’t proof that the vaccines caused it, that’s true,” Paul continued. “But we don’t know what causes it yet so shouldn’t we be at least open minded? We take 72 vaccines. Could it be? I don’t know. But we shouldn’t just close the door…"
Paul said the senators hounding Kennedy on the issue are “so close minded and so consensus driven” that they’re unwilling to accept the possibility that they could all be proven wrong in 10 years.
He highlighted the example of aspirin, which two decades ago adults over the age of 50 were told to take regularly to prevent cardiovascular disease. Paul said it sounded like a good idea at the time, but then 20 years later, it was found that people’s chances of dying from brain bleeds or stomach bleeds were greater than the risk of heart disease.
“Give the guy a break who says I just want to follow the science where it leads without presupposition,” Paul said, referring to Kennedy. “I think, really, what we have up here is presupposition. You’ve already concluded it’s absolute that autism isn’t caused by [vaccines], we don’t know what causes autism so we should be more humble in what we say.”
Today, at @RobertKennedyJr's HELP hearing, I made it clear that we need medical freedom.
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) January 30, 2025
There's such a belief in submission.
"Submit to the government. Do what you're told."
There is no discussion. There ought to be a debate.
RFK Jr. has my vote. MAHA! pic.twitter.com/F0AnthzFHf
Later, when Sen. Markwayne Mullin made a similar argument, Kennedy chimed in with a story about when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, gave the highest civilian honor to Dr. Frances Kelsey for her judgment about the drug Thalidomide.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin just SLAMMED Democrats for attacking RFK Jr. over questioning science!
— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) January 30, 2025
“I don't understand why my colleagues all of a sudden say we can't question science.”
“I guarantee you, if he was sitting here and he was gonna be the Secretary of HHS underneath the… pic.twitter.com/sUYfKvyJPN
Kennedy described her as a “young scientist at NIH who objected to the panel approving Thalidomide,” despite the fact that all scientists had approved it.
“She screamed and fought and risked her job and reputation and she blocked it in our country,” he said. Three years later, Kennedy noted she was recognized as a “savior” of American children because “we weren’t getting diabolical deformities” as they were seeing in Europe “because she questioned the science.”
Born #OTD 1914: Frances Oldham Kelsey, a hero to whom thousands of people owe their lives. As a reviewer for the FDA, she refused to approve the morning sickness drug thalidomide in spite of it being approved in 20 other countries, on the grounds that its safety was uncertain. pic.twitter.com/LzwL3vniv8
— Ash Jogalekar (@curiouswavefn) July 24, 2020
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