Washington DC [US], January 30 : Senate Democrats grilled Robert F Kennedy Jr on Wednesday (local time) over his views on vaccines during his confirmation hearing to be President Donald Trump's health and human services secretary, CNN reported.
The Democrats raised questions over Kennedy's previous statement regarding the measles outbreak in Samoa in 2019, his views on COVID-19 and his claims of linking vaccines to autism in children.
Democratic lawmakers pushed Kennedy to commit that he would not purge employees for political reasons or use his position to benefit financially, however, they failed to get a clear answer, CNN reported.
The Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House and can only afford to lose three of their senators. On the other hand, no Democratic senator has declared that they will back him.
Kennedy only faced Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday. The real test against the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will come on Thursday.
In response to Democrats grilling, Kennedy downplayed his anti-vaccine rhetoric and other controversial stances regarding public health.
"In my advocacy I have often disturbed the status quo by asking uncomfortable questions. Well, I won't apologize for that," Kennedy said. "We have massive health problems in this country that we must face honestly."
When asked about his previous statements on Covid-19 that it was a "genetically engineered bio-weapon that targets Black and white people but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people," Kennedy responded: "I didn't say it was deliberately targeted, I just quoted an NIH published study."
Pressed whether he said that Lyme disease is a "highly likely, militarily engineered bio-weapon" Kennedy said, "I probably did say that."
Kennedy denied that he said that exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender.
Kennedy said he was not sure if he wrote in his book that it is "undeniable that African AIDS is an entirely different disease from Western AIDS."
After the hearing, Democratic Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado told CNN that Kennedy is peddling "half-truths" and that he doesn't believe Kennedy's claims during the hearing that he is no longer anti-vaccine.
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