Dem
47
GOP
53
The former CDC director, Susan Monarez lasted 2.6 Scaramuccis after being confirmed by the Senate, with every Republican voting for her. Yesterday, she gave the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor, Pensions) Committee an earful.
The senators wanted to know why the Secretary of HHS fired her after 29 days. She said it was because she insisted on making decisions based on science. He ordered her to rubber-stamp anything his hand-picked panel of anti-vaxx advisers recommended on vaccines. She refused and said she would go with the best science. Kennedy told her that he was speaking to Trump every day about vaccines. That was supposed to impress her. It didn't and she refused to budge. He was infuriated and fired her.
At the meeting that led to Monarez' firing, things got very heated. She testified that Kennedy was very, very upset and very animated. She said he called the CDC the most corrupt federal agency in the world and he said that it was killing children. Some senators thought the meeting was recorded and wanted to hear the recording but others said it was not recorded.
After Monarez was fired, three other top CDC officials resigned in protest. One of them, Debra Houry, also testified that she had pushed back on Kennedy about vaccines as well. She noted that children have died of measles in Texas this year and that happened on Kennedy's watch. She said that Kennedy should be fired.
The chairman of the HELP Committee is Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician whose vote got Kennedy confirmed despite his own misgivings. During the hearing, he wondered aloud about whether the senators got it wrong when they confirmed Kennedy. Actually, he knows very well where the problem is. It was Cassidy's vote to confirm someone he knew perfectly well was completely incompetent. Cassidy did that to avoid having Donald Trump arrange a primary for him next year. In other words, he risked the nation's health to protect his own job. He claimed that Kennedy had given him private assurances that he would keep the CDC independent and not make it subservient to his personal views. Kennedy was straight up lying, of course, and Cassidy surely knew he was straight up lying, but used that as a fig leaf for a vote that he hoped he wouldn't have to regret so quickly.
In the end, Cassidy may go down anyway. He has already drawn several GOP primary challengers over his vote to convict Trump over the Jan. 6 riots. So he may end up getting the worst of all possible worlds: losing his job and going down in the history books as a coward who seriously damaged the nation's health.
In contrast to Cassidy, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the ranking Democrat on the committee, said that all Kennedy listens to are conspiracy theorists.
Meanwhile, out west, the four not-Alaska states bordering on the Pacific Ocean, together calling themselves the West Coast Health Alliance, came up with their own vaccine recommendations. These include every resident over 6 mos. getting the flu vaccine this fall and broad swaths of the population getting a COVID-19 shot. Also, that RSV vaccines be given to infants and seniors, among others. These recommendations follow scientific evidence, not something whispered in Robert Kennedy Jr.'s ear by some quack. Republicans generally are big fans of states' rights, but when there are dueling federal and state recommendations, it will be interesting to see them twist themselves into pretzels to be on the federal side. (V)