RFK clashes with senators over MAHA health reforms

A Senate Finance Committee hearing erupted into a showdown Sept. 4 as Democrats questioned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who responded with a forceful defense of his Make America Health Again (MAHA) mission. 

Here are key moments from the three-hour hearing: 

COVID: ‘We were lied to about everything’ 

Kennedy charged that the federal government lied to the public after the outbreak of COVID-19. 

“The whole process was politicized,” Kennedy told Sen. Cornyn, R-TX. “Senator, I mean, we were lied to about everything.” 

He cited the “science behind cloth masks,” school shutdowns, and health officials’ claims that COVID shots would stop transmission and infection.

He also noted that past Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials were forced out after criticizing former President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates. 

When Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, accused Kennedy of restricting vaccine access, the health secretary responded: “I would not recommend a product for which there is no clinical data for that indication.”

He then claimed Warren has ties to the pharmaceutical industry, saying, “I know you’ve taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies.” 

Autism at ‘pandemic’ levels

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-OK, raised alarm over skyrocketing autism diagnoses — now reportedly affecting one in 36 American children. 

“If that’s not a pandemic, then what is?” Mullin asked. “One in 36 – and it used to be one in 10,000 – have autism now. Can any of you guys with a straight face say that we shouldn’t look at every aspect of what we’re putting in our kids, be it from the food to the vaccines?”

Abortion pill safety review 

Republican Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Steve Daines of Montana pressed Kennedy on the promised safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone. Kennedy replied that FDA Commissioner Marty Makary assured him the review is “progressing apace.”

“We’re getting data, and all the time new data that we’re reviewing,” Kennedy said, and cited a recent study showing mifepristone carries an 11% complication rate.

Chronic disease ‘crisis’ 

Kennedy warned that chronic illness has reached “crisis proportions in our country.” He said new CDC data show 76.4% of Americans suffer chronic disease – compared with just 11% when John F. Kennedy was president and 3% in 1950.

“We are the sickest country in the world. That’s why we have to fire people in the CDC. They did not do their job,” Kennedy declared, referencing his recent removal of former CDC Director Susan Monarez.

He said MAHA reformers are targeting root causes, including ultra-processed foods, toxic chemicals, and baby formula contamination, as well as removing fluoride from drinking water. 

Not ‘anti-vax, just pro-science’ 

Kennedy rejected the “anti-vax” label, insisting, “I’m not going to sign on to something if I can’t do it to a scientific certainty. It doesn’t mean I’m ‘anti-vax,’ I’m just pro-science.” 

Public weighs in 

In a Sept. 4 X post following the hearing, Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America thanked Kennedy “for taking on the political ideologues in our nation’s healthcare system.” She also urged him that “we can never make America truly healthy again if Chemical Abortion Pills like Mifepristone remain produced and trafficked.”

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance blasted Democrats’ attacks as hypocrisy in an X post. 

“When I see all these senators trying to lecture and ‘gotcha’ Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal ‘therapies’ for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma,” he wrote. “You’re full of s*** and everyone knows it.”