“Charlatan!”. “A danger.” “Ignorant!”. They are some of the epithets that the United States senators gave Thursday against Robert F. Kennedy, the controversial Secretary of Health of the Donald Trump administration, in one of the most contentious hearings of recent times in Capitol. Since its confirmation, the former anti -vaccine activist has set his department and the public health system, especially around immunization campaigns. To such an extent that Republican politicians who supported him in the past have begun to express doubts about him. However, his followers represent key electoral votes, and the president has made it clear that Kennedy, 71, has his full support to continue his assault on the health system.
The measures of the aspiring democratic presidential candidate to impose their seal in the health system have accelerated this summer. In July he fired the 17 members of the Vaccine Advisory Commission (ACIP), an organ until then strictly apolitical; Half of them have been replaced by famous names in the groups contrary to these immunizations.
Two weeks ago, the White House ceased without contemplations to Susan Monarch, the director of the disease control centers (CDC, the largest public health agency in the United States), to which Kennedy had personally selected just a month before and was supported by the Republican majority. The reason: her refusal to accept guidelines on vaccines not backed by science. Before its march, the main scientific flat of the CDC went with it, among the support applause of the workers. The next day, the expert had been replaced by Jim O’Neill, number two of Kennedy in the department of Health and former biotechnological entrepreneur, without experience in medicine.
In this Thursday’s control session before the Senate Finance Committee, President John F. Kennedy’s nephew was challenging the wave of criticism: he accused CDC of deaths in the United States during the Covid pandemic, about 1.2 million people. He also assured that there is no evidence that Messenger RNA vaccines save millions of lives during the Coronavirus pandemic. And he argued that the executives dismissed from the CDCs “did not do their job.” Monarch, in particular, was “little worthy of trust,” he said.
The Kennedy effect – the legitimation of the anti -vaccine ideas promoted by its position at the head of the Department of Health – extends outside the body. This Wednesday, the health responsible in the Republican state of Florida compared vaccination mandates with “slavery” and announced its intention to cancel the obligation of these immunizations, even children.
The popularity of vaccines is decreasing in certain circles. Between 2024 and this year, the percentage of inoculated minors fell to 92.5% for the triple viral (protective against measles, rubella and papers) and 92.1% for those of diphtheria, tetanus and whore cough, according to data on the CDC. Although they are still very high immunization levels, they are insufficient to guarantee flock immunity, which requires 95%.
At the same time, in the first half of 2025, the United States registered the highest measles incidence in 30 years; A disease that was declared eradicated in 2002. Meanwhile, in the same period, the incidence of Railway has multiplied by four.
In a sign of the deep polarization that raises the current health policy between Democrats and Trumpists, three democratic majority states – Washington, Oregon and California – have opted for the opposite route to Florida. This week they announced an alliance, to which other territories could be added, to issue their own recommendations on vaccines, based on the recommendations of “scientific reputables, doctors and public health leaders.” The decision of the trio, as they have pointed out in a statement, arrives as “response to the recent federal acts that have undermined the independence of the CDC and raised concern about the politicization of science.”
“I’ve been worried for months,” said DeMetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC Immunization Division and one of the high positions that left with Monarch, on the ABC television network. “The barrier between science and ideology has collapsed completely.”
Thousands of active employees or former workers of the Department of Health (HHS) have signed open letters in which they ask for Kenndy’s march, which he exercised as an environmental lawyer. Nine predecessors of Monaez have written, in a tribune in The New York Times This week, that changes in CDC endanger the health of “each of the American citizens.” “It is no longer possible to have any confidence in what emanates from HHS,” he said in the CNN Tom Frieden chain, who was in charge of the centers during Barack Obama’s mandate.
In May, Kennedy announced that he unilaterally eliminated the COVID vaccine from the list of immunizations recommended for pregnant children and women, without taking into account the protocol to issue recommendations. The American Pediatric College presented this August’s own, which does include the vaccine for COVID.
The measures against these vaccines accumulate. This August, the American drug and food agency (FDA), under the Department of Health, restricted the doses of the new COVID vaccine over 65 and patients with certain medical conditions, instead of recommending it to all citizens. The leader of the Maha Movement (the acronym in English of Make America Healthy Again, to make the United States healthy again), in addition, has canceled 500 million dollars since August 500 million in funds for the development of Messenger RNA vaccines.
“To abandon research on the messenger RNA makes the United States more vulnerable to infectious diseases such as flu or covid; Bulletin of atomic scientists. “It yields a fundamental research area to other countries and will complicate the access of Americans to these Salvadoras de Live tools,” continues the expert.
Other vaccines have also been the subject of Kennedy’s crusade. In its first meeting, in July, the new Acip vaccine committee withdrew from the list of recommendations an immunization against flu that contains thymerosal, a preservative to which the anti -vacussion movement falsely relates to autism.
The next milestone can reach mid -September, when the next Acip meeting is scheduled, which could issue new recommendations on the vaccination calendar, the groups to be immunize and the formulas to be accepted. Kennedy has also promised for this month the publication of a study on the causes of autism, which in the past has related to vaccines. According to the newspaper The Wall Street Journalthat report will attribute the increase in the incidence of consumption during the pregnancy of a popular analgesic.
The controversy does not stop growing. Kennedy’s actions even concern a part of the Republicans, who fear the effect on the public health of these measures. “In his confirmation, he promised to respect the highest standards for vaccines, but since then I am increasingly worried,” Senator John Barraso, Republican and a doctor by profession reproached him, in the control session in Congress.
In spite of everything, the only Republican who matters maintains his faith in the Secretary of Health: Trump has made clear his support to his minister, who when he proposed for the position promised to let him “at will” in the Department of Health. “I have heard that he has done very well in Congress,” he said after the vociferous audience.
In part, it is coincidence of opinions. The president has also expressed concern about the increase in autism diagnoses, for example. But in part, it is political convenience: as a leader of Maha, Kennedy has his own followers base. A group of voters that differs from classic Trumpists: people very interested in health, from the past Democrat, and disenchanted with that party. An electorate who, although not especially numerous-while Kennedy remained in the presidential race, his intention to vote around 2-3%-, he can tip the balance in such tight elections as those promised in November 2026, those of half mandate.
And although their popular indices are negative, such as those of the Republican Administration, Kennedy is one of the least unpopular government members: 45% of voters approves their management.
“He has a bit different ideas,” Trump said about his secretary of Health after the confirmation hearing. “But we see what is happening in health in the world and what is happening in health in this country, I like the fact that he is different.”
