The political and public health worlds collided this week in Washington, D.C., as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. found himself at the center of a growing firestorm over his leadership on vaccines and the dramatic shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The controversy, which erupted during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on September 4, 2025, has drawn criticism not only from Democrats but also from members of Kennedy’s own family and, notably, some Republicans who once supported him.
At the heart of the uproar is Kennedy’s decision to fire CDC Director Susan Monarez less than a month after her Senate confirmation and to replace all 17 members of a key vaccine advisory panel with new appointees. According to The Wall Street Journal, Monarez claimed in an op-ed that she was dismissed after refusing to “pre-approve” vaccine recommendations from Kennedy’s handpicked panel, whose members, she wrote, have “publicly expressed anti-vaccine rhetoric.” Monarez insisted, “I was fired for not going along with Kennedy on the panel’s recommendations.”
During the hearing, Kennedy flatly denied Monarez’s account. “I did not say that to her,” he told the committee, as reported by Cowboy State Daily. “And I never had a private meeting with her. There are witnesses to every meeting that we have, and all of those witnesses will say I never said that.” Nevertheless, the abrupt ouster of Monarez, along with the resignation or firing of several other top CDC officials around the same time, has fueled concerns about the direction of federal public health policy under Kennedy’s stewardship.
Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, a physician and long-time vaccine advocate, did not mince words during his questioning of Kennedy. “In your confirmation hearings you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” Barrasso said. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.” He pointed to recent measles outbreaks and the firing of Monarez as evidence that public trust in vaccines and the agencies that oversee them is eroding. “In a recent poll, 89% of voters — 81% of Trump voters — agree vaccine recommendations should come from trained physicians, scientists, public health experts,” Barrasso noted.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, was even more blunt, calling Kennedy’s new advisory panel members “conspiracy theorists, crackpots and grifters.” Wyden, along with nearly every Democrat on the committee, called for Kennedy’s resignation, echoing a chorus of public health groups that have sounded the alarm about the secretary’s vaccine skepticism and his shift away from scientific consensus.
The controversy has spilled beyond the halls of Congress. On Friday, September 5, former Representative Joe Kennedy III, a Democrat from Massachusetts and nephew to the health secretary, took to social media to demand his uncle’s resignation. “Robert Kennedy Jr. is a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American,” Joe Kennedy III wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “At yesterday’s hearing, he chose to do the opposite: to dismiss science, mislead the public, sideline experts and sow confusion. None of us will be spared the pain he is inflicting.”
Kerry Kennedy, the secretary’s sister, joined the call for his resignation, writing, “Medical decisions belong in the hands of trained and licensed professionals, not incompetent and misguided leadership. The decimation of critical institutions, like the NIH and the CDC, will lead to the loss of innocent lives. This means that children, mothers, fathers, and those you love are at risk now, like never before. Enough is enough. Secretary Kennedy must resign. Now.”
Despite the mounting criticism, Kennedy has stood firm. Under questioning from Barrasso, he pledged to make vaccine guidance “clear, evidence-based, and trustworthy for the first time in history.” He cited low compliance rates with COVID boosters — “only 10% of children complying with the CDC’s recommendation on COVID boosters, and only 15 percent of health care workers” — as evidence that Americans have lost faith in the CDC. “We need to restore that faith, and we’re going to do that by telling the truth, and not through propaganda,” Kennedy asserted.
He also promised more rigorous vetting of proposed vaccines and new observational studies to assess whether existing vaccines are linked to chronic disease epidemics. “We’re going to go back and do observational studies on the existing vaccines to see if they’re linked to any of these chronic disease epidemics, so people can understand the risk profile of those products and make good assessments for their own health,” Kennedy told the Senate panel.
Not everyone in the Republican Party is ready to abandon Kennedy. Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, a member of the informal Senate Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Caucus, defended the secretary and criticized what she described as the media’s suppression of legitimate debate. “President Trump nominated RFK Jr., and the Senate confirmed him to make America healthy again, something the previous administration completely failed to do,” Lummis told Cowboy State Daily. “While I support vaccines, I'm sick of the media and establishment shutting down any legitimate debate. The arrogant, ‘We've always done it this way’ attitude from health bureaucrats who supported harmful COVID policies isn’t the advice I’m willing to blindly follow without question.” She added, “I welcome Wyoming parents to be involved in this discussion by asking their own doctors informed questions and making the best decisions to protect their children.”
President Donald Trump, who appointed Kennedy to the cabinet, reiterated his support for the embattled secretary later on Thursday. “Kennedy’s got a different take, and we want to listen to all of those takes,” Trump said, as reported by Nexstar Media. “But it’s not your standard talk, I would say. And that has to do with medical and vaccines. But if you look at what’s going on in the world with health, and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he’s different.”
Still, concerns persist that Kennedy’s approach could jeopardize decades of progress in public health. “There are real concerns that safe, proven vaccines like measles, like hepatitis B and others could be in jeopardy. And that would put Americans at risk and reverse decades of progress,” Barrasso warned. He further cautioned, “As we’ve seen over the past four years, the previous administration … when recommendations became politicized or swayed by bias … the public trust can be lost.”
Debra Houry, the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer, who resigned last week, echoed those fears. “For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political paused or interpretations. Vaccines save lives — this is an indisputable, well-established, scientific fact,” Houry stated upon her departure, as reported by Nexstar Media.
With the CDC poised to formalize new vaccine recommendations and the public health community on edge, the debate over Kennedy’s leadership shows no signs of abating. The nation now watches closely as the future of U.S. vaccine policy — and the credibility of its public health institutions — hangs in the balance.
