Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended the Trump administration’s recent firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), saying that “new blood” will soon take over the agency.
“America is home to 4.2% of the world’s population, yet we had nearly 20% of COVID deaths,” Kennedy said Thursday in front of the Senate Finance Committee. “We literally did worse than any country in the world.”
Kennedy said CDC leaders “who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving.”
“And that’s why we need bold, competent and creative new leadership at CDC,” he added. “People are able and willing to chart a new course. As my father once said, progress is a nice word, a change that’s a motivator. And change has its enemies. That’s why we need new blood at the CDC.”
Kennedy spoke before the committee about President Donald Trump’s healthcare agenda and vaccine guidance. Senate Democrats questioned him about his moves to limit COVID-19 shots for children, his firing of health officials, and his connections to people who have criticized mRNA vaccines.
Recently, the Trump administration made big changes at the CDC and other federal health agencies. All 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices were dismissed in June, and CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired in August. Kennedy said these changes are needed to restore public trust in health guidance.
Monarez, who had been CDC director for less than a month after Senate approval, wrote in an op-ed that Kennedy and his team told her to either resign or be fired. She said she was asked to “pre-approve the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed anti-vaccine rhetoric.”
During the pandemic, the CDC recommended vaccines for children as young as six months and for pregnant women to help pass immunity to newborns. Older children were required to wear masks in schools and daycares.
For many, former National Institutes of Health Director Anthony Fauci’s changing mask guidance became a major controversy. In early 2020, he told Americans not to wear masks because of shortages and limited evidence of asymptomatic spread. Weeks later, the CDC reversed its guidance and recommended cloth masks nationwide. Fauci later said the mixed messages “fooled” the public and caused mistrust.
