Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confronted intense questioning throughout this week’s Senate listening to as frustration, confusion, and anger grew amongst lawmakers and residents concerning his controversial vaccine insurance policies
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confronted questioning from lawmakers Thursday this week about vaccines, and it became a spectacle. Here is one trade between Kennedy and Democratic Senator Ben Ray Lujan from New Mexico.
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BEN LUJAN: Mr. Secretary, you select to know solutions to questions with some colleagues (inaudible).
ROBERT F KENNEDY JR: I am prepared to provide the reply. I am prepared to provide the reply.
LUJAN: Perhaps somebody – Mr. Secretary, somebody ought to have requested you – perhaps President Trump ought to have requested you, are you a reliable particular person? And we should always have waited for a solution then. Let’s transfer on.
KENNEDY: I do not even know what you are speaking about.
LUJAN: Mr. Secretary…
KENNEDY: You are speaking gibberish.
SIMON: And we’re now joined by NPR well being correspondent Rob Stein. Rob, thanks a lot for being with us.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Good to be right here, Scott.
SIMON: Listening to lasted three hours. What have been the highlights?
STEIN: You understand, Scott, I’ve coated plenty of fairly heated congressional hearings, however Kennedy’s grilling was in contrast to something I can bear in mind. Everybody anticipated the Democrats on the committee to go after Kennedy, particularly after he acquired his CDC director fired as a result of she clashed with him over his vaccine insurance policies, prompting a management implosion on the company, however they have been joined by some Republicans, together with Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming.
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JOHN BARRASSO: During the last 50 years, vaccines are estimated to have saved 154 million lives worldwide. I help vaccines. I am a physician. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy, in your affirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the best requirements for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply involved.
STEIN: However, you recognize, Scott, Kennedy remained combative and defiant all through the listening to, typically, as we heard, shouting over senators as they questioned him and having indignant exchanges about who’s telling the reality.
SIMON: And consistent with that, Rob, are you able to assist us perform a little fact-checking?
STEIN: Positive.
SIMON: For instance, Secretary Kennedy says that youngsters obtain too many pictures, as many as 92 by the point they’re 18. Is that appropriate?
STEIN: Yeah, you recognize, that one left plenty of consultants scratching their heads. So I checked with the American Academy of Pediatrics, and so they advised me no, it isn’t correct. Children get not more than 38 vaccine doses for childhood ailments like measles, mumps, hen pox, you recognize, polio. Perhaps nearer to 50 if you happen to depend annual flu pictures, however that is far fewer than 92. And there is loads of proof that these pictures are very protected and extremely efficient at defending children from ailments that may be, you recognize, very harmful.
SIMON: One other assertion the secretary stored making was that he had executed nothing to restrict entry to vaccines, together with the COVID-19 vaccines. Is that true?
STEIN: Nicely, you recognize, nothing he is executed up to now has really completely pulled any vaccines from the market, however he has made getting a COVID shot lots tougher for lots of people. And that is as a result of for the primary time, the vaccines aren’t obtainable to anybody six months and older to only stroll right into a pharmacy and get. The brand new pictures at the moment are solely authorised for individuals who face the best hazard of getting actually sick from COVID, you recognize, as a result of they’re 65 years previous or older or have sure different medical points.
SIMON: How onerous is it to get a COVID shot now?
STEIN: You understand, for lots of people, it is in all probability manner tougher, particularly proper now. In some locations, persons are having a very troublesome time discovering pharmacies that even have the vaccine, and after they do, they’re typically being turned away as a result of they do not meet the brand new guidelines. Generally they cannot even get it in the event that they do meet these new standards, and even when they arrive again with a prescription. You understand, that is partly as a result of the principles range from state to state, and plenty of medical doctors and pharmacies – pharmacists are confused by the brand new guidelines, too.
Now, you recognize, Scott, a few of this may in all probability ease up within the coming weeks when the up to date pictures come into pharmacies, extra plentiful across the nation and folks get extra conversant in the brand new guidelines, and presumably after a brand new – and presumably after a key CDC committee points formal suggestions for the COVID vaccines later this month. However, Scott, that committee was hand-picked by Kennedy, so nobody’s positive precisely what they will do.
SIMON: NPR well being correspondent Rob Stein. Thanks a lot for being with us, Rob.
STEIN: You wager, Scott.
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