During the first round of hearing on the confirmation of the Senate on Wednesday, Robert F Kennedy JR, President of Donald Trump, seemed to be clashing with his past self.
The legislators from the Senate Finance Committee on the grill are Kennedy in his past positions and comments on topics ranging from abortion to vaccines to the shooting at school.
Kennedy, who sometimes appeared in amazement, consistently diminished and denied controversial things he had previously said in podcasties, conferences or TV interviews, although the senators were directly quoted.
On several occasions, the legislators asked Kennedy to install their past health positions with their past health positions Potential role of HHS. Each time, he said that his remarks were wrongly characterized or never made such statements.
Here are six examples:
1. Kennedy’s rebuttal of the claim that “anti -vivian” neglects the years of activism
Describing Kennedy’s appearance on Podcast 2023, Senator Ron Wyden said Kennedy questioned the safety of vaccines and said, “No vaccine is safe and effective.”
Kennedy said the comment was a “fragment” of a bigger conversation with the host of Podcast Lex Fridman, in which Fridman asked him to name “any vaccine you think they are good”. Kennedy said Fridman interrupted him before he could make a tin.
In this interview, Kennedy said, “I think some of the vaccines of living viruses probably prevent more problems than they cause. There is no vaccine that, you know, is safe and effective.”
Kennedy also said during hearing that he was not anti-spiteable but “safety”.
He has long claimed that vaccines cause autism, despite many studies that are contrary to that. Kennedy also said, false that childhood vaccines are not safe.
In 2018, Kennedy founded a children’s health defense, a legal advocate that sought stories about children “injured” toxins and environmental vaccines. This organization supported and filed lawsuits, among other things, challenging the vaccination requirements.
2. Kennedy’s moving attitude of abortion
More senators said Kennedy had moved on to his abortion attitude.
“A year and a half ago, you went to New Hampshire … and you talked about (how) the government should not tell a woman what she can do with her body. That’s her choice,” said Senator Bernie Sanders. “I have never seen any major politician to move that question as fast as you have when Trump asked you to become the HHS secretary.”
Kennedy replied, “I believe, and I always believed that every abortion was a tragedy.”
Kennedy’s abortion attitude He has moved over the years.
In an interview with Wmur in New Hampshire in June 2023, Kennedy was characterized as a “choice” and said he thought “the worst solution is if the government is involved in decisions that should belong to a woman.”
In August 2023, Kennedy said in a second interview that he would support the federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks or 21 weeks of pregnancy. He returned the statement a few hours later because he said he “misunderstood” the question.
He again gave contradictory answers in May 2024. During an interview with Podcaster Sage Steele, former ESPN host, Kennedy said he opposed any government limit of abortion “even if it is a full term”. A few hours later, Kennedy also went to that statement, writing on the X that “the abortion should be legal to a certain number of weeks and then limited.”
Since May 2024, Kennedy has said that he supports abortion to fetal sustainability (which is usually in about 24 weeks of pregnancy) and that his position has changed because he “was willing to listen”.
During hearing, Kennedy said the states should control abortion, mirroring Trump’s position.
3. Kennedy compared the CDC vaccine program to the Nazi death camps
Senator Raphael Warnock said Kennedy had previously compared the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with Nazi death camps.
“Are you standing with those statements you have made in the past or withdraw these previous statements?” Warnock asked.
Kennedy said, “Senators, I do not believe I have ever compared CDC to the Nazi death camps.”
“I never said that,” Kennedy added.
During the 2013 autism conference, Kennedy compared the CDC program for childhood with the Holocaust. They asked him why CDC did not recognize autism as an epidemic. “For me, it’s like the Nazi death camp, what happened to these children,” Kennedy said of an increasing number of children diagnosed with autism. “I can’t tell you why someone would do something like that. I can’t tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust.”
Warnock also said Kennedy compared CDC to sexual abusers at the Catholic Church.
At the 2019 conference, Kennedy claimed that CDC HID damage in his children’s vaccination programs and compared it to the concealment of the Catholic Church for sexual abuse of children.
“The institution, the CDC and the vaccine program is more important than the children they should protect,” Kennedy said, NBC News Reporting reports. “This is the same reason why we had a pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church, because people could be convinced that the institution, the Church, was more important than these boys and girls who raped.”
4. Kennedy said “huge indirect evidence” linked school shooting with antidepressants
Senator Tina Smith, for Minnesota, said Kennedy repeatedly “blamed the school shots on antidepressants” and asked if he still believed it.
Kennedy replied, “I don’t think no one can answer that question, and I haven’t answered that question,” claiming that his past remarks were wrongly described. He said he thought any potential connection between antidepressants and school shootings “should be studied, along with other potential culprits.”
This is not the way he expressed him in the Live Stream 2023 with the X owner of Elon male.
Kennedy claimed that they were “huge intermediary evidence” that medicines contributed to the shooting at school. He has quoted selective serotonin (SSRI) re -storage inhibitors, an antidepressant and benzodiazepine class, drugs that are often used to treat anxiety. He said that “no good studies” on the role of psychiatric drugs in the shooting at school and that it had to be studied “years ago.”
Psychiatry experts told Politifact that there was no cause -a lot of antidepressants and a shooting. About 13 percent of the adult population uses antidepressants, and experts say there would be a connection, they would expect higher rates of violence. Studies on American shootings at school show that most attackers have not used psychiatric drugs, which have an anti -warllect effect.
5. Kennedy said pesticide in water supply contributes to ‘sexual dysfority’ in children
Senator Michael Bennet, Colorado, asked Kennedy: “Did you say that pesticide exposure causes children to become transgender?”
Kennedy replied, “No, I never said that.”
Kennedy did not use these accurate words in an interview with Podcast 2023, but he said: “I think there are many problems we see in children, especially boys, it is probably undervalued as much as it comes from chemical exposure, including a lot of sex dysforia we see.”
“Sexual dysphoria” is not a medical term. Gender dysphoria is an experience of trouble that can happen when a person’s gender identity does not match their sex and is common in transgender people.
In 2023, Kennedy said the study found that exposure to herbicidal attachment in the water caused some men’s frogs to develop female sexual organs and become infertile.
Attrazine is a commonly used herbicide in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates how much it is permitted in drinking water and assesses potential environmental and human health.
There are important biological differences between people and frogs, and no scientific studies in humans have linked exposure to Attrazine gender dysphoria. Atrazine is associated with innate damage and other problems of reproductive health in some studies.
6. Kennedy fakes falsely that the Coid-19 was aimed at attacking ‘Caucas and Black People’
Bennet also asked Kennedy if he once said that Coid-19 “was a genetically engineered biological that aimed at black and white, but spared Ashkenzi Jews and Chinese.” (Ashkenaz Jews are descendants of Jewish people who lived in central or Eastern Europe.) Kennedy said he “did not say that it was intentionally targeted.”
While talking about biological autopomors at dinner in July 2023 in New York, Kennedy said: “There is an argument that ethnically targeted. The Coid-19 attacks of a certain race disproportionate. The Coid-19 is aimed at attacking white and blacks. People who are the most immune to the Ashkenazi and Chinese Jews. “
Politifact rated this claim by false. Although the origin of the covid-19 is still discussed, there is no evidence that an intentional ethnic biological biological intended for the observation or target of certain races or ethnic groups.
Most inequality in the infection and mortality of Coid-19 stems from social, economic and health inequality.
