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RFK Jr defends leadership as lawmakers grill him on vaccines

Robert F Kennedy Jr has defended his leadership of US health agencies in a fiery hearing,river no poker as lawmakers grilled him over his vaccine policies and other sweeping changes.

During three hours of testimony, Democrats accused the US health secretary of lying and restricting Americans' access to vaccines. Several Republican senators also raised concerns.

The hearing comes a week after Kennedy fired the leader of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a clash over his vaccine policies.

Since taking the helm at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in February, some of Kennedy's decisions have alarmed health experts.

In June, he fired every member of a panel of independent vaccine experts that issues recommendations for immunisations.

Public health experts raised concerns about the qualifications of the members - several of whom are vaccine critics - appointed in their place.

Democrats were quick to try to pin the secretary down on the turmoil at the CDC, and on his previous assurances of backing vaccine access.

Enough Republican senators have echoed such criticism to make this a rare showdown that did not immediately devolve into partisan to and fro.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Thursday, Susan Monarez, the former head of the CDC, said she was fired because she refused to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations from the new panel.

During Thursday's hearing, the Senate Finance Committee's ranking Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, pressed Kennedy on Monarez's accusation.

The health secretary denied it, saying he had told her to resign after asking her if she was a trustworthy person. He said she had responded "no".

He described the overhaul at the agency - which included the resignations of several top officials - as "absolutely necessary", and that it had "failed miserably during Covid".

The vaccine advisory panel was one of several of Kennedy's policy changes that lawmakers brought up during the hearing, leading to clashes.

As Senator Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, accused the health secretary of restricting access to vaccines, Kennedy angrily responded: "You're just making stuff up."

Lawmakers repeatedly questioned Kennedy over his stance on the Covid-19 vaccine, including Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, who asked the health leader how many lives the immunisations had saved during the pandemic.

Kennedy said he did not know because of "data chaos" under the Biden administration.

"You've had this job for eight months and you don't know the data about whether vaccines saved lives?" Warner asked.

According to the latest CDC figures, there have been more than 1.2 million Covid deaths in the US. The agency notes that these are provisional numbers and include Americans who died "with Covid" and where Covid-19 was "an underlying or contributing cause of death on the death certificate".

In what appeared to be a conciliatory shift in tone, Kennedy later said the vaccine saved "quite a few" lives.

Democrats repeatedly pressed Kennedy to resign, and he in turn pushed back hard - the sort of attitude President Donald Trump tends to look for in his political appointees - by accusing them of "just making things up" and "crazy talk".

Republicans took a more measured tone, with some praising Kennedy's leadership and others asking him to clarify what they described as contradictory remarks.

Senator Thom Tillis - who said before the hearing that he planned to ask Kennedy why his actions were not "matching up" with his promises - gave him a list of questions to answer at a later time.

The North Carolina Republican noted that Kennedy had accused some scientists of lying in his responses during the hearing.

"I'd just like to see the scientific evidence of that," he told the health secretary.

The toughest Republican questioning came from Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor who has said he voted to confirm Kennedy only after he assured him he would uphold several US vaccine policies.

The Louisianan pressed Kennedy on his stance on Covid-19 immunisations, accusing him of restricting access to the shots because of conflicting recommendations from health agencies.

Under Kennedy's leadership, the US Food and Drug Administration recently approved a round of Covid boosters for fewer groups - only for adults 65 and older and people with medical conditions.

"Effectively, we are denying people vaccines," Cassidy said.

"You're wrong," Kennedy responded.

Trump, speaking to reporters after the hearing, praised Kennedy as "a very good person" and appears to acknowledge that some of his beliefs are outside the medical mainstream.

"He's got some little different ideas," Trump said, referring to his views as "a different take" on health.

"It's not your standard talk, I would say. And that has to do with medical and vaccines," Trump continued.

"But if you look at what's going on in the world with health, and look at this country also in regard to health, I like he fact that he's different."

Kennedy's hearing comes a week after he fired 600 CDC employees in addition to Monarez.

Just weeks beforehand, a gunman fired 500 rounds at the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, killing a police officer. Investigators said the shooter blamed the Covid-19 vaccine for making him suicidal.

Afterwards, hundreds of HHS officials wrote a letter to Kennedy, accusing him of fuelling mistrust in public health officials by spreading misinformation.

They pointed to his statements about vaccines, including the Covid-19 shot and the immunisation against measles.

This year, the US has seen its worst outbreak of measles in decades.

While Kennedy has endorsed the vaccine as the best way to prevent the spread of measles, he has also made false claims about the safety and efficacy of the shot.

Polls indicate the American public overwhelmingly supports vaccinations – a sharp contrast with the health secretary's scepticism.

But unless Kennedy becomes a political liability for Trump, the president's backing appears solid.

It would take a major shift in public sentiment for the president to accept the blowback he would receive from segments of his own base if Trump were to cut Kennedy loose.

With analysis from the BBC's North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher

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