Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confronted intense questioning throughout this week’s Senate listening to as frustration, confusion, and anger grew amongst lawmakers and residents relating to his controversial vaccine insurance policies
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confronted questioning from lawmakers Thursday this week about vaccines, and it was a spectacle. This is one trade between Kennedy and Democratic Senator Ben Ray Lujan from New Mexico.
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BEN LUJAN: Mr. Secretary, you select to know solutions to questions with some colleagues [inaudible].
ROBERT F KENNEDY JR: I am keen to provide the reply. I am keen to provide the reply.
LUJAN: Perhaps somebody – Mr. Secretary, somebody ought to have requested you – perhaps President Trump ought to have requested you, are you a reliable individual? And we should always have waited for a solution then. Let’s transfer on.
KENNEDY: I do not even know what you are speaking about.
LUJAN: Mr. Secretary…
KENNEDY: You are speaking gibberish.
SIMON: And we’re now joined by NPR well being correspondent Rob Stein. Rob, thanks a lot for being with us.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Good to be right here, Scott.
SIMON: Listening to lasted three hours. What had been the highlights?
STEIN: You understand, Scott, I’ve lined lots of fairly heated congressional hearings, however Kennedy’s grilling was not like something I can keep in mind. Everybody anticipated the Democrats on the committee to go after Kennedy, particularly after he obtained his CDC director fired as a result of she clashed with him over his vaccine insurance policies, prompting a management implosion on the company, however they had been joined by some Republicans, together with Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming.
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JOHN BARRASSO: During the last 50 years, vaccines are estimated to have saved 154 million lives worldwide. I help vaccines. I am a health care provider. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy, in your affirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the very best requirements for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply involved.
STEIN: However, you realize, Scott, Kennedy remained combative and defiant all through the listening to, typically, as we heard, shouting over senators as they questioned him and having offended exchanges about who’s telling the reality.
SIMON: And in step with that, Rob, are you able to assist us do some fact-checking?
STEIN: Certain.
SIMON: For instance, Secretary Kennedy says that kids obtain too many photographs, as many as 92 by the point they’re 18. Is that right?
STEIN: Yeah, you realize, that one left lots of consultants scratching their heads. So I checked with the American Academy of Pediatrics, and so they advised me no, it isn’t correct. Youngsters get not more than 38 vaccine doses for childhood illnesses like measles, mumps, hen pox, you realize, polio. Perhaps nearer to 50 if you happen to rely annual flu photographs, however that is far fewer than 92. And there is loads of proof that these photographs are very secure and extremely efficient at defending youngsters from illnesses that may be, you realize, very harmful.
SIMON: One other assertion the secretary saved making was that he had completed nothing to restrict entry to vaccines, together with the COVID-19 vaccines. Is that true?
STEIN: Nicely, you realize, nothing he is completed to date has really completely pulled any vaccines from the market, however he has made getting a COVID shot rather a lot more durable for lots of people. And that is as a result of for the primary time, the vaccines aren’t accessible to anybody six months and older to simply stroll right into a pharmacy and get. The brand new photographs at the moment are solely authorised for individuals who face the best hazard of getting actually sick from COVID, you realize, as a result of they’re 65 years outdated or older or have sure different medical points.
SIMON: How exhausting is it to get a COVID shot now?
STEIN: You understand, for lots of people, it is in all probability means more durable, particularly proper now. In some locations, persons are having a very troublesome time discovering pharmacies that even have the vaccine, and once they do, they’re typically being turned away as a result of they do not meet the brand new guidelines. Generally they cannot even get it in the event that they do meet these new standards, and even when they arrive again with a prescription. You understand, that is partly as a result of the foundations fluctuate from state to state, and lots of medical doctors and pharmacies – pharmacists are confused by the brand new guidelines, too.
Now, you realize, Scott, a few of it will in all probability ease up within the coming weeks when the up to date photographs come into pharmacies, extra plentiful across the nation and folks get extra aware of the brand new guidelines, and probably after a brand new – and probably after a key CDC committee points formal suggestions for the COVID vaccines later this month. However, Scott, that committee was hand-picked by Kennedy, so nobody’s positive precisely what they’ll do.
SIMON: NPR well being correspondent Rob Stein. Thanks a lot for being with us, Rob.
STEIN: You wager, Scott.
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