The Hill reports:

Republican senators are sending clear signs of disapproval and unhappiness with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., making it plain to President Trump that they want the administration to address the chaos Kennedy has caused by trying to rewrite the nation’s vaccine policies.

GOP senators have stopped short of calling on Kennedy to resign and haven’t yet said they regret voting for him in February, but they want him to back off efforts to change vaccine policy recommendations without sound scientific backing as the administration faces a growing public backlash.

Kennedy received an unusual admonishment from Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), an orthopedic surgeon, when he testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday.

“I support vaccines. I’m a doctor. Vaccines work,” said Barrasso, the Senate’s No. 2-ranking Republican leader.

“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” he said. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”

Barrasso pointed to a national measles outbreak, the sudden ouster of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, and questions raised by the leadership of the National Institutes of Health over mRNA vaccines as raising troubling questions.

“Americans don’t know who to rely on,” he said. “If we’re going to make America healthy again, we can’t allow public health to be undermined.”

Barrasso said there “are real concerns” that safe, proven vaccines for serious diseases such as measles and hepatitis B could now be in jeopardy.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who attended the hearing, said Kennedy’s policy changes have made it tougher for people to get vaccines.

He read aloud a social media post by conservative commentator Erick Erickson, who said his wife, who was diagnosed with cancer, couldn’t get a vaccine at CVS.

“I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines,” Cassidy bluntly told Kennedy.

Cassidy then grilled the Cabinet official over his past statements and actions as the former lead attorney for Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group that questions the safety of vaccines.

He drew Kennedy into a contradiction by asking him whether he agreed Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, the government-backed initiative that developed the COVID-19 vaccine during Trump’s first term.

When Kennedy replied, “Absolutely,” the senator pounced.

“But you just told Sen. [Michael] Bennet that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID,” Cassidy pointed out.

“As lead attorney for the Children’s Health Defense, you engaged in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the COVID vaccine. Again, it surprises me that you think so highly of Operation Warp Speed when, as an attorney, you attempted to restrict access,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy declined to say after the hearing whether he still has “confidence” in Kennedy’s ability to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. [Continue reading…]