Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Monday referred to as Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s firing of all 17 experts on the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine panel “extreme,” however cautioned she must be taught extra concerning the resolution.
Kennedy introduced the choice in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, catching many GOP lawmakers unexpectedly.
“I didn’t know that that had occurred,” Collins, a senior member of the Senate Well being Committee. “It appears to me to be extreme to ask for everyone’s resignations however I can’t choose as a result of I don’t know who he’s changing them with.”
The Maine senator stated the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee “supplied useful steering to the general public on what they need to do.”
Collins stated that Kennedy didn’t promise members of the Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions Committee that he would preserve the vaccine consultants in place.
“I’m simply studying about it for the primary time,” she stated. “I don’t know what the premise was.”
Kennedy stated in his Wall Road Journal column that he eliminated the consultants in order that Trump might form the membership of the committee.
“With out eradicating the present members, the present Trump administration wouldn’t have been capable of appoint a majority of latest members till 2028,” he wrote.
Kennedy argued that vaccines have turn into “a divisive problem in American politics’ and that public confidence is waning” in well being businesses, pharmaceutical firms and vaccines themselves.
“That’s the reason, underneath my path, the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers is placing the restoration of public belief above any pro- or antivaccine agenda. The general public should know that unbiased science guides the suggestions from our well being businesses. This can make sure the American folks obtain the most secure vaccines attainable,” he wrote.
Senate Democratic Chief Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) in an announcement blasted Kennedy’s transfer as “reckless.”
“RFK Jr. and the Trump administration are taking a wrecking ball to the applications that preserve Individuals protected and wholesome. Firing consultants which have spent their total lives defending children from lethal illness shouldn’t be reform — it’s reckless, radical, and rooted in conspiracy, not science,” Schumer stated in an announcement.