Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denied former CDC director Susan Monarez was pressured to preapprove recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel appointed by him in June.
His comments came after Monarez, who was fired last week, said in an Op-Ed column in The Wall Street Journal Thursday that she outlined the events that led to her ouster, including a meeting with Kennedy in which she said she was pressured to rubber-stamp the recommendations.
“I didn’t say that to her,” RFK Jr. said, adding that “I never had a private meeting with her.”
Separately, earlier in the hearing, Kennedy said that under the Trump administration, the FDA is on track to approve the highest number of drugs this year. “At the FDA, we are on track to approve more drugs this year than any other time in history,” Kennedy said before the panel chaired by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho).
The hearing was scheduled to focus on President Donald Trump’s 2026 health care agenda and Kennedy’s goal to Make America Healthy Again. It comes amid intense public scrutiny on the CDC and U.S. immunization policy under the leadership of RFK Jr., a well-known vaccine critic.
In June, the Kennedy scion removed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and named eight new members, some of whom were widely regarded as vaccine skeptics.
Under RFK Jr., the Trump administration fired former CDC director Susan Monarez only 29 days into her job last week, reportedly over her refusal to accept the recommendations of the newly formed ACIP panel.
Leading vaccine makers: GSK (NYSE:GSK), Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), BioNTech (BNTX), Moderna (MRNA), and Novavax (NVAX).
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