In the course of the first spherical of his Senate affirmation hearings on Wednesday, Robert F Kennedy Jr, President Donald Trump’s decide for US Division of Well being and Human Companies secretary, seemed to be at odds together with his previous self.
Legislators on the Senate Finance Committee grilled Kennedy on his previous positions and feedback on subjects starting from abortion to vaccines to high school shootings.
Kennedy, showing astonished at instances, persistently downplayed and denied controversial issues he has stated beforehand in podcasts, conferences or TV interviews, regardless that the senators quoted him instantly.
On a number of events, legislators requested Kennedy to sq. his previous well being positions together with his potential HHS position. Every time, he stated his remarks had been being mischaracterised or that he’d by no means made such statements.
Listed here are six examples:
1. Kennedy’s rebuttal of claims that he’s ‘antivaccine’ ignores years of activism
Describing Kennedy’s look on a 2023 podcast, Senator Ron Wyden stated Kennedy had questioned vaccine security and had stated: “No vaccine is protected and efficient.”
Kennedy stated that remark was a “fragment of” a bigger dialog with podcast host Lex Fridman, by which Fridman requested him to call “any vaccines you suppose are good”. Kennedy stated Fridman interrupted him earlier than he may make a extra nuanced level.
In that interview, Kennedy stated: “I believe a few of the dwell virus vaccines are most likely averting extra issues than they’re inflicting. There’s no vaccine that’s, you understand, protected and efficient.”
Kennedy in the course of the listening to additionally stated he’s not anti-vaccines, quite, “pro-safety”.
He has lengthy argued that vaccines trigger autism, regardless of many research contradicting this. Kennedy has additionally stated, falsely, that childhood vaccines aren’t safety-tested.
In 2018, Kennedy based Kids’s Well being Protection, a authorized advocacy group that sought tales about youngsters “injured” by environmental toxins and vaccines. That organisation has supported and filed lawsuits difficult vaccination necessities, amongst different points.
2. Kennedy’s shifting abortion stance
A number of senators stated Kennedy had flip-flopped on his abortion stance.
“A 12 months and a half in the past, you went to New Hampshire … and also you talked about (how the) authorities shouldn’t inform a girl what she will be able to do together with her personal physique. That’s her alternative,” Senator Bernie Sanders stated. “I’ve by no means seen any main politician flip on that difficulty fairly as rapidly as you probably did when Trump requested you to turn out to be HHS secretary.”
Kennedy replied: “I consider, and I’ve all the time believed, that each abortion is a tragedy.”
Kennedy’s abortion stance has shifted over time.
In a June 2023 interview with WMUR in New Hampshire, Kennedy characterised himself as “professional alternative” and stated he thought “the worst answer is that if the federal government is concerned in choices that ought to belong to a girl.”
In August 2023, Kennedy stated in one other interview that he would help a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks or 21 weeks of being pregnant. He walked again the assertion hours later as a result of he stated he “misunderstood” the query.
He gave contradictory solutions once more in Might 2024. Throughout an interview with podcaster Sage Steele, a former ESPN host, Kennedy stated he opposed any authorities restrictions on abortions “even when it’s full time period”. Hours later, Kennedy walked that assertion again, too, writing on X that “abortion ought to be authorized up till a sure variety of weeks, and restricted thereafter.”
Since Might 2024, Kennedy has stated he helps abortion up till foetal viability (which is often at about 24 weeks of being pregnant) and that his place modified as a result of he was “keen to hear”.
Throughout his listening to, Kennedy stated states ought to management abortion, mirroring Trump’s view.
3. Kennedy in contrast the CDC’s vaccine programme to Nazi dying camps
Senator Raphael Warnock stated Kennedy beforehand in contrast the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) to Nazi dying camps.
“Do you stand by these statements that you just made up to now, or do you retract these earlier statements?” Warnock requested.
Kennedy stated, “Senator, I don’t consider that I ever in contrast the CDC to Nazi dying camps.”
“I by no means stated it,” Kennedy added.
Throughout a 2013 autism convention, Kennedy in contrast the CDC’s childhood vaccine programme to the Holocaust. He was requested why the CDC wasn’t acknowledging autism as an epidemic. “To me that is like Nazi dying camps, what occurred to those children,” Kennedy stated of the rising variety of youngsters identified with autism. “I can’t inform you why any person would do one thing like that. I can’t inform you why strange Germans participated within the Holocaust.”
Warnock additionally stated Kennedy in contrast the CDC to sexual abusers within the Catholic Church.
At a 2019 convention, Kennedy claimed the CDC hid harms in its youngster vaccination programmes and in contrast doing so to the kid sexual abuse cover-up of the Catholic Church.
“The establishment, CDC and the vaccine programme, is extra vital than the kids that it’s supposed to guard,” Kennedy stated, in response to NBC Information reporting. “It’s the identical purpose we had a pedophile scandal within the Catholic Church, as a result of individuals had been in a position to persuade themselves that the establishment, the church, was extra vital than these little girls and boys who had been being raped.”
4. Kennedy stated ‘great circumstantial proof’ linked college shootings to antidepressants
Senator Tina Smith, for Minnesota, stated Kennedy had repeatedly “blamed college shootings on antidepressants” and requested whether or not he nonetheless believed that.
Kennedy replied: “I don’t suppose anyone can reply that query, and I didn’t reply that query,” arguing that his previous remarks had been mischaracterised. He stated what he meant was that any potential hyperlink between antidepressants and faculty shootings “ought to be studied, together with different potential culprits”.
That’s not how he phrased it in a 2023 livestream with X proprietor Elon Musk.
Kennedy claimed there was “great circumstantial proof” that drugs contributed to high school shootings. He cited selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a category of antidepressants, and benzodiazepines, medicines usually used to deal with anxiousness. He stated there have been “no good research” on the position of psychiatric medication in class shootings and that it ought to have been studied “years in the past”.
Psychiatry specialists instructed PolitiFact there isn’t a causal relationship between antidepressants and shootings. About 13 p.c of the grownup inhabitants makes use of antidepressants, and specialists say if there have been a hyperlink, they might count on greater charges of violence. Research on US college shootings present most attackers weren’t utilizing psychiatric medicines, which have an antiviolence impact.
5. Kennedy stated a pesticide within the water provide contributes to ‘sexual dysphoria’ in children
Senator Michael Bennet, Colorado, requested Kennedy: “Did you say that publicity to pesticides causes youngsters to turn out to be transgender?”
Kennedy replied, “No, I by no means stated that.”
Kennedy didn’t use these actual phrases in a 2023 podcast interview, however he did say: “I believe numerous the issues we see in children, and significantly boys, it’s most likely under-appreciated how a lot of that’s coming from chemical exposures, together with numerous the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing.”
“Sexual dysphoria” isn’t a medical time period. Gender dysphoria is the expertise of misery that may happen when an individual’s gender id doesn’t match their intercourse, and is widespread in transgender individuals.
Kennedy in 2023 stated a research discovered that publicity to the herbicide atrazine in water precipitated some male frogs to develop feminine intercourse organs and turn out to be infertile.
Atrazine is a generally used herbicide within the US. The Environmental Safety Company regulates how a lot is allowed in consuming water and evaluates potential ecological and human well being dangers.
There are vital organic variations between people and frogs, and no scientific research in people have linked atrazine publicity to gender dysphoria. Atrazine has been linked, in some research, to start defects and different reproductive well being issues.
6. Kennedy falsely claimed COVID-19 was focused to assault ‘Caucasians and Black individuals’
Bennet additionally requested Kennedy whether or not he as soon as stated COVID-19 was a “genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black and white individuals however spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language individuals”. (Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of Jewish individuals who lived in central or Japanese Europe.) Kennedy stated he “didn’t say it was intentionally focused”.
Whereas speaking about bioweapons at a July 2023 dinner in New York Metropolis, Kennedy stated: “There’s an argument that it’s ethnically focused. COVID-19 assaults sure races disproportionately. COVID-19 is focused to assault Caucasians and Black individuals. The people who find themselves most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language.”
PolitiFact rated this declare as false. Though there may be nonetheless debate on COVID-19’s origins, there is no such thing as a proof it was a intentionally engineered ethnic bioweapon designed to spare or goal sure races or ethnicities.
Most disparities in COVID-19 an infection and mortality stem from social, financial and well being inequities.
