Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. became "very upset" when the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told him that there was no science to back up his anti-vaccine claims and demands, the ex-director said.
Testifying to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, fired CDC director Susan Monarez was asked to share the conversation she had with Kennedy when he asked her to support whatever the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said they wanted.
"The secretary in that morning meeting was very upset, very animated," Monarez recalled of the conversation. "And he said with regard to that particular topic, 'I have heard that you may not sign off on the forthcoming ACIP recommendations.' And I said, 'I cannot sign off on something before I see the data and the evidence.' And he said and elaborated on this for some period of time 'there is no data and evidence. There is no science that CDC has never collected that the data the evidence and the science associated with the safety and efficacy of vaccines.'"
Kennedy purportedly told her, "I needed to commit to signing off on each and every one of those recommendations. And if I could not commit to that, I needed to resign."
She went on to say that she is very concerned about political appointees being the ones to sign off on the recommendations put out by the Kennedy HHS.
"It takes us to a very dangerous place in public health," she added.