Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sparred Sept. 4 with U.S. senators over his management of health agencies and past comments about COVID-19 vaccines and antidepressants. At several points during the hourslong Senate Finance Committee hearing, Kennedy said senators were making up information or distorting his record.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are being dishonest right now,\u201d he told Democrat Sen. Tina Smith after she said he had blamed antidepressants on a recent school shooting in her home state of Minnesota.<\/p>\n
When Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana said the government was \u201ceffectively\u201d denying people vaccines, Kennedy retorted, \u201cYou\u2019re wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re just making stuff up to scare people, and it\u2019s a lie,\u201d he said to Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat who said Kennedy was limiting access to COVID-19 vaccines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
PolitiFact fact-checked some of the most notable back-and-forth moments from Kennedy\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., asked Kennedy whether he accepts that \u201ca million Americans died from COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how many died,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re the secretary of Health and Human Services,\u201d Warner said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have any idea how many Americans died from COVID?\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody knows that because there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n
Over 1 million Americans have died from COVID-19, according to\u00a0multiple\u00a0statistical\u00a0estimates.<\/p>\n
Many patients who died had comorbidities, including hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.\u00a0Researchers say\u00a0that identifying causal relationships between comorbidities and outcomes in COVID-19 is methodologically difficult.<\/p>\n
Cassidy asked Kennedy if he agreed that President Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, Trump\u2019s 2020 initiative that resulted in the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d Kennedy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cassidy said Kennedy\u2019s support surprised him, because of Kennedy\u2019s COVID-19 vaccine criticisms and actions. Kennedy canceled\u00a0funding for mRNA vaccine research, the science that led to the rapid development of the vaccine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2021, Kennedy\u00a0falsely\u00a0said the COVID-19 vaccine was the \u201cdeadliest vaccine ever made.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the Sept. 4 hearing, Kennedy said that Operation Warp Speed was \u201cgenius\u201d because it \u201cit got the vaccine to market that was perfectly matched to the virus at that time, when it was badly needed because there was low natural immunity and or people getting very badly injured by COVID.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hassan said Kennedy was limiting people\u2019s access to the COVID-19 vaccine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who want to exercise their freedom of choice are being denied that because you are citing data that you won\u2019t produce to the public,\u201d Hassan said.<\/p>\n
Kennedy pushed back.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody can get the vaccine,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cYou\u2019re just making things up to scare people, and it\u2019s a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Food and Drug Administration has limited the groups of people who are approved to get the most updated COVID-19 vaccine. Anyone age 65 and older and any person 6 months and older who has at least one underlying health condition that increases their risk of severe COVID-19 infection are approved to get the 2025-26 COVID-19 vaccine, according to Aug. 27 guidance.<\/p>\n
People who don\u2019t fit into those categories aren\u2019t banned from getting a COVID-19 vaccine. But getting one might require doctors to prescribe the vaccine \u201coff-label,\u201d making the process more challenging and potentially more costly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smith said Kennedy blamed school shootings on antidepressants after the Aug. 27\u00a0shooting\u00a0at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis that killed two children and injured 21 people. Kennedy said Smith was \u201cjust making stuff up\u201d and he had not said that.<\/p>\n
During an Aug. 28\u00a0interview, a \u201cFox & Friends\u201d host asked Kennedy if the government was investigating whether gender dysphoria medications play a role in violent crimes. Robin Westman, the 23-year-old who fired through the windows of the Minneapolis church during a morning Mass, was assigned male at birth and later changed names to reflect a female identity.<\/p>\n
Kennedy said that the Health and Human Services Department is \u201claunching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence.\u201d Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are a\u00a0class of antidepressant.<\/p>\n
Kennedy\u00a0previously\u00a0has linked antidepressants to violent crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Psychiatry experts have told\u00a0PolitiFact\u00a0and\u00a0other\u00a0fact-checkers\u00a0there isn\u2019t a causal relationship between antidepressants and shootings. About 11% of the nation\u2019s adult population uses antidepressants, according to the\u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\u00a0Experts say\u00a0if there were a link between violence and the medications, they would expect higher rates of violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Senate Finance Committee hearing highlighted the ongoing debate and controversy surrounding COVID-19 vaccines, antidepressants, and violent crime. Kennedy\u2019s comments and actions have been fact-checked by PolitiFact, and the results show that some of his claims are not supported by evidence. The hearing also demonstrated the challenges of accessing COVID-19 vaccines, particularly for those who do not fit into the approved categories.<\/p>\n
A: Over 1 million Americans have died from COVID-19, according to multiple statistical estimates.<\/p>\n
A: Not everybody can get COVID-19 vaccines. The FDA has limited the groups of people who are approved to get the most updated COVID-19 vaccine, but people who don\u2019t fit into those categories can still get vaccinated with a doctor\u2019s prescription.<\/p>\n
A: No, there is no causal relationship between antidepressants and shootings, according to psychiatry experts and fact-checkers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Faces off with U.S. Senators Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sparred Sept. 4 with U.S. senators over his management of health agencies and past comments about COVID-19 vaccines and antidepressants. At several points during the hourslong Senate Finance Committee hearing, Kennedy said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dmn-dallas-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/v2\/I2Z2PNL6B5B5PKZQWX74SFSFQA.jpg?auth=77d032d877d9d68a136ab9a1d1bb9507f32d260f46e70a6da5d4148f0c89fa3a&quality=80&width=1200&height=630&smart=true","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12586,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12583\/revisions\/12586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}