[2025-02-04] Wyden Assertion at Finance Committee Vote on RFK Jr.’s Nomination to be HHS Secretary

February 04,2025

As Ready for Supply

This morning the Finance Committee will vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to function our nation’s chief well being care officer.

Earlier than we get to Mr. Kennedy and why I imagine he’s unfit to function HHS Secretary, I’d wish to say this: the final a number of days we’ve witnessed an authoritarian takeover of our federal authorities by Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They’ve set their sights on a full purge of anybody in authorities that doesn’t bend the knee and observe their orders.

They’ve taken over the Treasury Division’s funds system, which impacts main applications inside our committee’s jurisdiction that embody Social Safety, Medicare and Medicaid funds. This committee voted for a significant reform of pharmacy profit managers handed 26-0 however Trump and Musk killed it.  Suppose what they might do with abuse of this fee system. 

A lot of that is of doubtful authorized and constitutional authority, and flies within the face of Congressional authority. I hope our colleagues on the opposite facet of the aisle is not going to sit by whereas Trump and Musk make a mockery of the facility Republicans maintain of their congressional majority.

Now greater than ever, the American folks want leaders that can stand as much as Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

That brings us to Mr. Kennedy.

A current evaluation confirmed that Mr. Kennedy has made 114 separate appearances within the final 4 years the place he espoused anti-vaccine views or unfold misinformation in regards to the efficacy of vaccines. In 36 of these cases, Mr. Kennedy straight linked vaccines to autism.

Final week, Mr. Kennedy was given ample alternative on a bipartisan foundation to recant his decades-long profession peddling anti-vaccine conspiracies.

As an alternative, he dodged and weaved, and gave no indication that if confirmed as HHS Secretary, he would stand by the long-settled science surrounding routine vaccinations. Simply take the Samoa measles outbreak for instance. Mr. Kennedy instructed me “We don’t know what was killing them,” talking in regards to the 83 measles deaths throughout an outbreak of the illness in 2019. Simply yesterday, the Director-Normal of Well being from Samoa known as this declare “a complete fabrication.”

Peddling these conspiracy theories because the nation’s chief well being care officer might be lethal for youths throughout the nation.

On abortion, Mr. Kennedy’s solutions as soon as once more solely increase extra questions.

He refused to inform us whether or not he would blindly observe a directive from Donald Trump to interrupt the regulation and finish entry to mifepristone, and appeared to don’t have any understanding of his function in imposing present federal legal guidelines that assure ladies the correct to life-saving abortion care.

Mr. Kennedy additionally failed to indicate a primary understanding of the Medicare and Medicaid applications he’d be tasked with overseeing. That alone needs to be disqualifying.

Mr. Kennedy has given us no cause to imagine he’ll be something aside from a rubber stamp for plans to intestine Medicaid and rip well being care away from the American folks, and a yes-man if ordered by Trump or Musk to take an unlawful motion.

At present the committee will make a judgement about the way forward for science on this nation that can influence the well being and well-being of People for years to come back. I agree that the well being care establishment wants substantial adjustments to raised serve sufferers. So the query in entrance of us this morning is fairly easy. Do Senators need their legacy to incorporate disregarding primary well being science and as an alternative of elevating conspiracy theorists?

Making Robert Kennedy Secretary of Well being and Human Companies can be a grave menace to the well being of the American folks. I urge my colleagues to vote ‘No’.

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