At a three -hour hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on September 4, the Minister of Health received difficult questions for his actions, such as the dismissal of Susan Monsarez, Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which had resisted the Minister. Kennedy has also dismissed the entire CDC Advisory Committee and has replaced it with his teammates for his value.
His controversial policies were also the cancellation of funding of approximately $ 500 million for MRNA vaccine research. But also a more general policy change that includes a dramatic reduction in vaccination recommendations against COVID-19, for example in pregnant women and children, and their deposition at the discretion of states and individual doctors. Kennedy denies the quantification of the lives saved thanks to the Covid-19 vaccines, expressing doubts about their safety. Indeed, in his defense, he counterattacked on charges that the CDC had misleading the Americans during the pandemic, making its own policy change necessary.
Fragmentation of health policy
It should be noted that strong criticism was filed by both the Democratic and the Republican Party. The hearing took place as part of a letter of protest signed by more than 1,000 officials from the Ministry of Health, who demanded Kennedy’s resignation, considering his policies as a risk to public health due to dubious ideological conditions undermining scientific methodology. The practical result of these policies is fragmentation, with the designation of health policies becoming the responsibility of every state and not the central state.
Florida has already announced that it intends to become the first state to abolish compulsory vaccines, many of which, such as that for polio, are a prerequisite for the enrollment of children at school. Indeed, Florida’s Minister of Health, Joseph Landapo, likened the compulsory of vaccines to “slavery”. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put on his body? I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift of God, “he said.
Scientific arguments against ideological
Defending himself, Kennedy described his administration as the most active and proactive in the history of the Ministry of Health, insisting on tackling drug prices, fighting fraud in healthcare, as well as pressure on companies. His speech was of a strong ideological nature, as scientific objections replied that the previous government with its choices to tackle the Covid -9 pandemic destroyed small and medium-sized enterprises, increasing economic inequality in the US. He also insisted on violating private freedoms and in the intergenerational injustice caused by the closure of schools that hit certain generations of children. More generally, he challenged both the number of deaths due to Covid-19 crown and the salvation of lives thanks to MRNA vaccines.
Kennedy insisted on the option that “whoever wants to be vaccinated”. However, he faced strong criticism, based on specific cases of citizens who faced difficulty in being vaccinated, and the confusion about which categories of citizens are considered to need vaccination. In conclusion, the long -term hearing was characterized by a strong confrontation between science and ideology or even simple rhetoric.
In general, Kennedy’s policy seems to be based on a strong decentralization with the responsibility to burden the individual states and individual doctors, while refusing a single vaccine policy.
