RFK Jr. Hearings

Here are your cliff notes and what's next

This week, RFK Jr. had two Senate confirmation hearings. The first was before the Finance Committee, which will ultimately decide whether his confirmation moves to a full Senate vote. The second was with the HELP (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) Committee—not required but a courtesy, as HELP oversees government health services.

These hearings were high-profile for several reasons:

1. RFK Jr.’s long history of ignoring scientific facts

2. The movement he has built under Make America Healthy Again

3. His political shape-shifting has drawn supporters and critics from both the left and right

If confirmed, he would lead the Department of Health and Human Services, managing a $1.8 trillion budget and shaping policies that directly impact your health and the health of your community.

Here are your cliff notes.

Overall review

Most questions focused on vaccines because this is his most controversial and historical stance. We got glimpses of other topics, like Medicaid and abortion medication. Unfortunately, we didn’t hear much about chronic disease or industry hold.

While a few Republican senators threw softballs, I was happy to see others—like Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy (a physician)—press him on his stance on vaccines and evidence-based medicine. Democrats came out strongly against him, which was a little surprising given support for removing industry influence and addressing chronic illness.

RFK Jr. also proved politically savvy—using buzzwords like “innovation” and “AI,” dodging tough questions, and relying on plausible deniability.

We at YLE noticed five key themes throughout the hearings:

1. Unprepared

Our health systems and government are big and complicated. To the average American, and even those of us who work in public health, it’s easy to get confused about who does what and where.

However, for the person nominated to run HHS, a basic understanding is his job. RFK Jr. repeatedly demonstrated that he didn’t have it. For example, he:

• Confused Medicaid and Medicare multiple times

• Showed little understanding of key healthcare infrastructure, like EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act)

• Wasn’t familiar with community health organizations

• Struggled to differentiate between Medicare Parts A, B, and C

• Frequently got disease prevalence, clinical guidelines, and pharmaceutical usage stats wrong

• Had no clear plan for policy priorities like lowering prescription drug costs

These gaps could be addressed with a strong support team. But his lack of preparation could also signal:

1. A desire to “break the system” without a vision for what comes next

2. Leading with ego over responsibility

2. “I’ll look at the evidence before I make up my mind”

At face value, this sounds reasonable. In science, we want leaders who make decisions based on data (as well as other things, like values).

The problem? The science is already clear on many of the issues he was questioned about, yet he continues to ignore it—what’s known as the Square One Fallacy.

For example, he specifically questioned the following topics:

• Safety of mifepristone (abortion pill): More than 100 studies have confirmed that 99% of patients had no complications

• Vaccines and autism: Large-scale studies (e.g., Denmark, with hundreds of thousands of kids) show no link. Other research has shown autism is likely developed before birth, supported by genetic research. Yet RFK Jr. cited a non-peer-reviewed blog as evidence of a vaccine-autism connection. He did not back down on this viewpoint.

• Vaccine safety: Thousands of studies support the safety of currently approved vaccines. When safety concerns arise, vaccines are removed (e.g., Rotashield).

Claiming he needs “to see the data” ignores the overwhelming evidence already available. Not using the mountains of evidence we already have and starting at zero would be a massive waste of government spending, and progress would be stalled, as Senator Hassan emotionally pointed out.

3. Dangerous comments signaling out groups

Several statements were not just misleading—they were potentially harmful to particular groups of people:

• African Americans’ immune systems: He cited research claiming that Black individuals have stronger immune responses to certain antigens and suggested that they should, therefore, receive different vaccine schedules based on race. While a study did observe differences in immune responses, his conclusion is flawed. First, it was one vaccine—rubella. Second, the immune system is complex, and the scientists found no difference in other important measures of the immune response. Misinterpreting this nuance would lead to harmful policies, particularly for children, undermining equitable and evidence-based vaccination strategies.

• Mental illness stigma. He stood by his theory that antidepressants lead to mass shootings, which ignores epidemiological evidence behind mass shootings. This could contribute to the stigma millions already face.

• Health of children. In his book, he dismisses germ theory. During the hearing, he backtracked slightly—but not entirely. This undermines the foundation of modern medicine, including vaccines, antibiotics, and sanitation. Rejecting this puts children at greater risk for preventable infections like measles and polio.

4. Doesn’t take responsibility

RFK Jr. dodged accountability on multiple fronts from past actions:

• Samoa measles outbreak: Despite evidence that he helped drive down vaccine uptake—contributing to 83 deaths—he denied any role.

• Financial conflicts of interest: He was asked about his financial stake in vaccine-related lawsuits, which poses a major conflict of interest for an HHS Secretary since he will oversee pharmaceutical applications and lawsuits. Instead of addressing the concern, he misrepresented the question as a request to “drop the lawsuits altogether”—and refused.

• Anti-vaccine messaging: When confronted with his organization’s sale of anti-vaccine onesies, he dismissed it, claiming he’s no longer involved. However, under his leadership, Children’s Health Defense became a major source of vaccine disinformation. Sanders pointed out this onesie that is being sold on his site right now:

Posters shown during the Congressional hearing

• Extreme past statements: He refused to acknowledge previous inflammatory comments, including comparing vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany and entertaining 9/11 conspiracy theories.

5. Surprises

A few of RFK Jr.’s statements did raise eyebrows:

• Supports PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief), despite his past claims that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS

• Backs medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorder (although it’s not clear why this stance has changed in which he previously called for healing farms.)

• Wants to invest in avian flu vaccines (but hedged on mRNA vaccines, saying he needs “to look at the data”)

• Supports the polio vaccine and wouldn’t change its recommendation

Of course, this could all be a strategic play for confirmation votes. And it’s unclear how these positions align with the new administration or Project 2025, which opposes some of them.

Bottom line

We watched these hearings, so you didn’t have to. (Please send drinks.) But in the end, these hearings were mostly predictable.

What’s next? The Finance Committee will likely vote for him to go to an entire Senate vote (vs. stopping his nomination altogether). The full Senate vote hasn’t been scheduled, but it will probably be quick. Eight years ago, it would take a couple of weeks to get the vote; four years ago, it was closer to a month. And now it will probably be a week.

If I were a betting person, I think he did “good enough” in these hearings to get the needed votes to be the next Health and Human Secretary.

Stay tuned.

Love, YLE team

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Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) is founded and operated by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, wife, and mom of two little girls. YLE reaches more than 305,000 people in over 132 countries with one goal: “Translate” the ever-evolving public health science so that people will be well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: