'You Lied': Physician Lawmaker Confronts RFK Jr. About ACIP Firings
Rep. Kim Schrier, MD (D-Wash.), tore into HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday, accusing him of lying and arguing that he broke a promise not to change the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
During an HHS budget hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, Schrier, a pediatrician, asked Kennedy if he had ever treated measles, bacterial meningitis, pertussis, or whooping cough (Kennedy said he had not).
Schrier spoke of performing spinal taps in infants to test for meningitis, and of children with whooping cough who cough so hard "they vomit, they run out of air, they break ribs."
Each one of these illnesses can be prevented with a vaccine, she said, adding later: "I will lay all responsibility for every death from a vaccine-preventable illness at your feet."
Schrier also asserted that in order to secure the confirmation vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.), Kennedy promised to not remove the ACIP members.
"I never made that agreement," Kennedy said. "If he said that I agreed to it, it would be inaccurate."
In February, Cassidy shared that he had received a number of commitments from Kennedy that led him to support his nomination as HHS secretary. In a speech at the time, Cassidy said Kennedy pledged to maintain ACIP's recommendations. However, in a transcript of the prepared remarks for that speech on the senator's website, it appeared the pledge included maintaining ACIP itself.
Despite the commitments, Kennedy announced in June that he had removed all 17 ACIP members in order to "restore trust" in U.S. vaccine science. Shortly thereafter he appointed eight new members, including some controversial selections.
"Mr. Secretary, you're now on the record," Schrier said. "You lied to Sen. Cassidy. You have lied to the American people. You have lied to parents about vaccines for 20 years."
On Monday, Cassidy urged the CDC to postpone ACIP's upcoming meeting slated for Wednesday and Thursday.
While the eight new ACIP members have some scientific credentials, Cassidy noted, they lack the necessary expertise in areas like immunology and mRNA technology, "and may even have a preconceived bias against them."
In addition to voting on fall flu shot recommendations, the newly formed ACIP panel will also consider a topic long touted by the anti-vaccine movement -- the inclusion of thimerosal in the flu vaccine.
"The meeting should be delayed until the panel is fully staffed with more robust and balanced representation -- as required by law -- including those with more direct relevant expertise," Cassidy wrote. "Otherwise, ACIP's recommendations could be viewed with skepticism, which will work against the success of this Administration's efforts."
As to whether Kennedy broke a promise, Cassidy recently said that his commitment on ACIP was about not "changing the process, not the committee itself."
During the hearing, Kennedy defended his decision to remove the 17 ACIP members and create an entirely new panel.
"The ACIP committee that we fired was a committee that was rife with conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical [companies]. They had committed multiple acts of malpractice," he said, including allowing kids to get "69 to 92 jabs" before they turn 18, as opposed to the three vaccines he received.
"None of them have been safety tested, with the exception of the COVID vaccine," he added.
In fact, 258 randomized controlled trials of vaccines have been conducted, more than half of which compared the vaccine to placebo.
Kennedy also defended his replacements for ACIP, noting that "none of them are anti-vax."
He said that Martin Kulldorff, PhD, will chair the committee. Kulldorff was reportedly fired from Mass General Brigham, and thereby, Harvard Medical School, after controversial social media posts about COVID-19. He was also one of the three original authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, alongside NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD.
Robert Malone, MD, who Kennedy credited with "inventing mRNA vaccines," will co-chair the committee, he added.
"We have scientists, immunologists, toxicologists, every kind of medical discipline that you would want on that committee," he said. "And we're going to have gold-standard science."
In addition to fielding questions about ACIP, Kennedy came under scrutiny for cuts to the fiscal year 2026 HHS budget, the intended focus of the hearing.
Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) asked Kennedy specifically about budget cuts that could threaten recent progress in tackling the opioid epidemic.
"This administration now plans to cut critical programs and fire behavioral health and crisis specialists, threatening to strip hundreds of thousands of veterans of life-saving treatment to prioritize billionaires over those who serve," he said.
"Most egregiously, in the FY 26 budget, the Trump administration is proposing to slash over $1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA]," he added. "Mr. Secretary, you don't slash lifelines in the middle of a rescue. You don't call 911, and hang up halfway through, and you sure as hell don't preach about redemption while cutting the funding that makes redemption possible."
Veasey noted that Kennedy has been public about his own history of substance use. "Do you believe that structured recovery programs were essential to your own recovery?" he asked.
Kennedy agreed that "it was important," and said the administration was "not denying anybody access to care. We're shifting some of the funding away from SAMHSA to the states."
"Mr. Secretary," Veasey said, "I think that it's great that you talked about your recovery, but, man, you can't pull the ladder and shut the door."