Two GOP Doctors Clash During Kennedy Hearing

Robert F. Kennedy returned to the Capitol on Thursday for Round 2 of his confirmation hearings, and the hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee was as testy as Wednesday's before the Senate Finance Committee. Some key moments from the hearing:

• "What will you do with that trust?" The panel is chaired by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor. He asked Kennedy if he would continue to make unfounded claims about vaccines if he was confirmed as America's top health official. Cassidy recounted the "worst day" of his medical career when a young woman needed an emergency liver transplant that could have been prevented with "$50 of vaccines," Politico reports. Cassidy said there are people who trust Kennedy more than their own doctors and asked, "What will you do with that trust?" At the end of the hearing, Cassidy told Kennedy he was "struggling" with his nomination.

• Vaccines and autism. Cassidy, considered a key vote for confirmation, repeatedly asked Kennedy if he would accept data that shows no link between the measles vaccine and autism, ABC News reports. Kennedy said he would look at the studies. "That is a very troubling response, because the studies are there," independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said. "Your job is to have looked at those studies as an applicant for this job."
• Two doctors clash. Republican Sens. Markwayne Mullin, Rand Paul, and Tommy Tuberville expressed skepticism about vaccines during the hearing, the New York Times reports. Mullin suggested that vaccines cause autism and said he doesn't like how his kids "look like a freakin' pin cushion" after being vaccinated. Cassidy fact-checked Paul, a fellow physician, after Paul questioned the need to give children hepatitis B vaccines.
• An emotional moment from Hassan. The Times reports that Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, whose 36-year-old son has cerebral palsy, broke down in tears as she recounted how she thinks every day about whether something she did during pregnancy caused his condition. "So please do not suggest that anybody in this body of either political party doesn't want to know what the cause of autism is," she said. Hassan also asked Kennedy about aspects of Medicare. "You don't know the basics of the program," she told him after he failed to identify parts of the program.

• "Your views are dangerous." Democratic Sen. Angela Alsobrooks pressed Kennedy on claims he has made that Black people should receive vaccines on a different schedule because they have better immune systems, the Times reports. Public health agencies haven't recommended a different schedule. "What different vaccine schedule would you say I should have received?" Alsobrooks asked. She told Kennedy she will vote against his nomination because his views "are dangerous to our state and to our country."
• Another clash with Sanders. NBC News reports that there was a shouting match between Kennedy and Sanders after Kennedy alleged that "almost all" the committee members had received millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protected its interests. "I ran for president like you," Sanders told Kennedy. "I got millions and millions of contributions, they did not come from the executives, not one nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceuticals, they came from workers."

(More Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stories.)