Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces the heat of the GOP senators on the position of the vaccine

The Senate Democrats found unlikely allies in the Senate Republicans during an ardent hearing, where the Secretary of Health and Social Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was toasted for his position on vaccines.

Kennedy’s testimony to the Senate Committee Finance Thursday was presented as a discussion on the health care agenda of President Donald Trump, but this quickly was washing the language of the legislators, who accused the secretary of lying on the way he would exploit HHS and the centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While an animated exchange dam between Kennedy and the Democrats was expected, it was the heat of the Senate Republicans in the panel, including a pair of doctors who have become legislators, who stood out.

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The Secretary of Health and Social Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives to testify before the Senate Finance Committee of the Dirksen Senate Office building on September 4, 2025 in Washington, DC (Andrew Harnik)

“I support the vaccines. I am a doctor. Vaccines work,” said the whip of the majority of the Senate John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Said. “Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation audiences, you have promised to meet the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I have been deeply worried.”

“The public has seen epidemics of measles, leadership at the National Institutes of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently confirmed,” he continued. “Americans don’t know who to count on.”

When asked what he would make to make sure that the vaccination advice was clear, Kennedy said: “We are going to make him clearly, based on evidence and trust for the first time in history.”

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Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Is addressed to journalists at Capitol Hill on June 24, 2025 in Washington. (Katopodis Tasos)

The hearing occurred in the heels of a week of agitation to the CDC, where Kennedy dismissed the former director of the CDC Susan Monarez, which led several senior officials to resign from the agency. Before that, the secretary had cleaned the federal government’s vaccine recommendation committee and sorted his own members to serve, and he also decided to cancel $ 500 million in mRNA vaccine contracts.

Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., Is also chairman of the Senate health committee and was the decisive vote to confirm Kennedy. He argued that Kennedy’s actions on vaccines seemed to counter his support for Trump Warp Speed’s operation, a radical executive program of the Trump administration at the start of the COVVI-19 pandemic which highlighted the production of vaccines.

He noted that Trump and Kennedy had promised “radical transparency” with regard to the administration’s health program, but restored that the secretary’s decision to put new members to the advisory committee on vaccination practices seemed to be a conflict of interest.

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Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, speaks at a press conference at the American Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 4, 2021. (Ting Shen / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“I am concerned, however, because many of those you have appointed for the board of directors (advisory committee for vaccination practices) … have received income as an expert witnesses as complainants for lawyers who are pursuing vaccines,” said Cassidy. “If we put people who are paid for people who pursue vaccines, this seems to be a conflict of interest, do you quickly agree with this?”

“No, I don’t do it,” said Kennedy, arguing that even if it may seem like a bias, it was not a conflict of interest.

Not all the republican doctors of the panel have not gone after Kennedy. Senator Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Has a long time an ally of the secretary and gave him room to face the accusations that he was anti-vaccine.

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“To say that I am anti-Vaccin is like saying that I am anti-medicine,” said Kennedy. “I am a pro-medicine, but I understand that some drugs harm people, some of them have risks, some of them have advantages that prevail over these risks for certain populations, and it is true with vaccines.”

Marshall agreed that he was not “anti-Vax either”, and he listed several vaccines which, according to him, were good but argued that it was the transparency and the approach of the vaccines under the HHS and the CDC which he then had.

“What I feel the difference is that sometimes my friends on the other side of the aisle have the impression that there is a single size, that they should tell parents what to do,” said Marshall. “And what you and I are fighting is that we want to allow parents to make these decisions.”