Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday and tried to talk about budgets and chronic disease, but House Democrats kept bringing him back to vaccines and measles. Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee on the Trump administration's plan to cut the Health and Human Services budget by about $16 billion, Kennedy faced sharp questioning over his role in the nation's worst measles surge in decades and his long record of questioning vaccines, the BBC reports. Democrats accused him of weakening confidence in routine childhood shots and mishandling an outbreak that led to nearly 4,000 cases and the deaths of two children in Texas.
"Your dangerous conspiracy theories are undermining safe and effective vaccines," Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson told Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist. He said Kennedy doesn't have a degree in medicine or public health, but he is "overruling doctors, scientists, and public health experts across our country," the Guardian reports. Kennedy largely steered around his past vaccine claims, emphasizing instead what he called ending "federal policies that fueled the chronic disease epidemic" and defending the proposed 12.5% HHS cut as necessary in the face of a $39 trillion deficit.
- Asked by Rep. Linda Sánchez if a child lost to measles might have been saved by the MMR shot, Kennedy replied, "It's possible, certainly." Asked later if he agreed that the vaccine was safe and effective, Kennedy said it's "safe for most people," Axios reports.
- At other points, he bristled at the questioning, saying Democrats were not letting him respond. "They've all shut me up and they've talked about science, but science is about debate," he said.
- Democrats accused Kennedy of "making terrible decisions" and spreading misinformation. The Guardian reports that during the hearing itself, he made false claims about the hepatitis B vaccine. After Rep. Judy Chu told him that the decision to stop universally recommending it for newborns was "incredibly harmful," Kennedy insisted that babies are "essentially at zero risk" unless their mother is infected, and that the vaccine, which has been researched for decades, hasn't been studied properly.
- Lawmakers from both parties cited his broader health agenda. Democrats pressed him on cuts to cancer research and maternal-and-child aid, while Republican Rep. Blake Moore, who has a neurodivergent son, said he was "underwhelmed" by autism research efforts and described the personal impact of unsupported suggestions from Kennedy and President Trump that Tylenol use in pregnancy could cause autism. "My wife was hurt, and she felt for a split-second until we came to our senses and we talked about this, that there was any way she was responsible," he said.
- Other Republicans praised Kennedy, with Rep. Jodey Arrington calling him "a breath of fresh air." Rep. Greg Moore, a physician, highlighted Kennedy's nutrition efforts, the Washington Post reports. "The greatest thing that your administration has done is bring highlighting to the fact that food is medicine," Murphy said.
- This was the first of seven congressional hearings scheduled for Kennedy over the next week.
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