RFK Jr. said the CDC “killed children” according to the former director

Former CDC director Susan Monarez testified on Wednesday at a combative hearing in Washington on Wednesday, DC on how the secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dismantles scientific expertise at the CDC, confirming the worst fears of all Americans who always care about science and public health.

Monarerez, who was dismissed by President Donald Trump less than a month after being confirmed, told senators that Kennedy told him in August that he was going to change the infant vaccine calendar in September and “I had to be on board.” She was then pushed out of the agency before being officially released by Trump for refusing to follow the changes and to dismiss others who did not agree.

“I could have been silent, accepting requests, and no one would have known. What the public would have seen was scientists rejected without the cause and the protections of the vaccines discreetly eroded,” said Monarez. “I would have lost the only thing that cannot be replaced: my integrity.”

CDC secrets

Monarez testified that she had been charged by secretary Kennedy not to speak with the senators, a bizarre request for political appointment confirmed to the Senate. The director of the CDC was not a position which required the approval of the Senate before 2023. Monarez said that after talking about members of the congress of some of his concerns, Kennedy asked him not to repeat this again.

Monarez was questioned by Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat in New Hampshire, on what happened when she rejected her requests to dismiss CDC officials who would not accept her anti-vaccin program.

Monarez also testified that Kennedy had declared comments “particularly hurtful and derogatory” on the CDC during their conversations. She said Kennedy called the CDC as the “most corrupt federal agency in the world” and even said that “CDC employees were horrible people.”

“He said that CDC employees killed children and that they don’t care,” said Monarez about Kennedy. “He said that CDC employees had been bought by the pharmaceutical industry. He said that CDCs have forced people to wear masks, a social distance as a dictatorship.”

Monarez continued saying that the comment that had the most injured was “a particularly lively sentence” claiming that during the COVVI-19 epidemic, “CDC told hospitals to divert sick patients sick until they have blue lips before allowing them to receive treatment”.

The Charlatle of Kennedy

More than 2,000 people have been dismissed or attempted to be dismissed since Kennedy took power in HHS, according to discussions on Wednesday. Kennedy is a long-standing anti-vaccin activist who has falsely affirmed that no vaccine is safe and effective, which he would later claim that he had never said. Kennedy does not believe in the theory of germs either and floated the theories of conspiracy on COVID-19, including the idea that it was designed to be less deadly for Chinese and Jews.

In June, Kennedy dismissed the 17 members of the CDC Advisory Committee on Vaccination Practices (ACIP), external experts who give advice on the policies of the country’s vaccines. Kennedy has stacked the committee with many people who are simply not qualified to give an opinion on the security and efficiency of vaccines.

The new members of the AIPI will meet Thursday and Friday to discuss changes in vaccine recommendations, including for hepatitis B and COVVI. And experts are afraid of what can get out of this meeting, given the confusion triggered by new guidelines that COVVI-19 vaccines should only be administered to those who are 65 and over or have a preexisting condition that puts them at high risk.

Is there a recording or not?

Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was one of the rare Republicans at Wednesday’s hearing which did not try transparently to attack Monarez for having been insufficiently faithful to Trump. Cassidy is a former doctor and spoke of news at the Washington Post hearing that Kennedy wrote an email in Monarez on August 19, declaring that all the main political decisions at the CDC needed the agency’s nominees.

But most of the Republicans who asked Monarez on Wednesday were openly hostile.

Senator Markwayne Mullin, a republican of Oklahoma, pressed Monarz on the exact words used at a meeting with Kennedy before his dismissal. Mullin has repeatedly suggested that she was a liar and said she should pay attention to the way she had responded. Mullin warned her that the conversation between her and Kennedy had been recorded.

Monarez replied that Kennedy had said that he could not trust her and that she said that he should dismiss her if it was. “He told me that he couldn’t trust me, and I told him that if he couldn’t trust me, he could fire me,” said Monarez very precisely.

Mullin said that its version of the meeting was not true, stressing that the conversation had been recorded. “This is not how this conversation took place. And you know, right? ” Said Mullin with sufficiency. The senator repeated the assertion that she was not honest on what was discussed.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent of the Vermont who caucates by the Democrats, said that if such a registration exists, he should be produced for the entire committee to hear. Later in the hearing, Senator Cassidy read a sheet of paper to point out that Mullin had apparently told journalists shortly after his questions that he was “wrong” that there was a recording.

“For the record, it has just been reported that Senator Mullin told journalists that he had mistaken in saying that the RFK-Monarez meeting had been recorded,” said Cassidy. “But in case he was wrong that he was wrong, if there is a recording, he should be released.”

Cassidy continued by saying that he wanted to know if other conversations at HHS had been registered and the committee had sent a request to HHS for files but “we have not yet received these.”

Pressing monarez from the right

The Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky tried several times to suggest that the vaccines were dangerous during his questions in Monarez. And Kennedy clearly took note of it and went to social networks to be a part. “Thank you @randPaul”, tweeted Kennedy.

Senator Ashley Moody, a Republican from Florida, took a different angle in his attacks and harassed Monarez on the lawyers who were sitting behind her, describing them as “anti-Trump lawyers”. Moody continued to emphasize the fact that she was not trying to be an opponent while on several occasions the names of the lawyers, who are public information.

Several other Republicans have continued to try to suggest that it was suspect that Monarez had lawyers and continued to try to limit it when they were hired, as if it was suggesting that it was intrinsically a suspicious and unworthy witness. Monarrez did not fold towards the interrogation, but it was a strange show to see Trump’s allies clearly grabbed anything to distract the dismantling of Kennedy from the CDC.

Fears after filming CDC

The hearing also included a discussion on the recent shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta by a man who thought he was injured by the COVVI-19 vaccine. The 30 -year -old shooter, identified as Patrick David White, pulled around 500 laps during his attack, 180 of which hit the building. White committed suicide after murdering a police officer, according to PBS News.

The attack shaken the agency, and Debra Houry, a former CDC official who also testified on Wednesday, said that some scientists from the CDC vaccines had removed their names of documents which they wrote in order to protect themselves. The anti-vaccine feeling in the country, led by Kennedy, has made everyone less sure in several ways.

“Each ball was intended for a person,” said Houry. “And each of my staff was very traumatized afterwards.”

“I had staff who covered their children in the parking lot of the daycare. There were people who were in driving while balls passed over their heads,” said Houry. “I have a lot who will not talk about vaccines now and to remove their names from the papers. They no longer wish to present publicly because they believe that they were personally targeted due to disinformation. ”

The paralyzing nostalgia of conservatism

Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, started his questions with subjects that would be perplexed for external viewers. His investigations linked to the seats assigned to the CDC and other ridiculously minor problems, such as: “Have you encouraged people to work from a distance?”

Marshall then asked questions about the mandates of the vaccines and the number of photos that children receive. The 65 -year -old senator, such as so many conservatives with a very pink vision of their own childhood who are skeptical of any new scientific progression, said the vaccines went well at the time he was a child. But he did not like Monarez to be opposed to the objectives of Kennedy and Trump.

“The basic vaccines that we obtained in the 1960s and 70s, Polio, MMR, DTAP, it seems to be excellent vaccines that said the test in time,” said Marshall. “But your attitude here according to which each person needs each vaccine is completely contrary to the philosophy of secretary Kennedy and the mission of the president.”

Senator Jon Husted, a Michigan Republican, had a similar approach. He challenged the way the CDC spoke of infant vaccines and told Monarez that he did not like CDC warnings on potential diseases that unvaccinated children could contract. He suggested that the tone used by the public health agency was too scary.

“We should not frighten the people they endanger their lives,” said Husted about parents who do not vaccinate their children.

In many ways, Husted’s attitude really sums up where we are as a country. Public health warnings are considered to be “alarmists” because so many people in the 2020s do not remember the diseases that have been widely wiped out in the United States at the end of the 20th and early 21st century. They have no first -hand experience with things like polio or measles, so they no longer think that these vaccines are necessary.

Senator Bernie Sanders may have said it best on Wednesday: “It is absurd to have to say it in 2025, but the vaccines are safe and effective.”