(Washington) Questioning questions in the US Senate Thursday, Donald Trump’s health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. tried to defend the dismissal of the director’s main health agency, when calls for her resignation are multiplying.
“We need a new daring, competent and creative direction” at the head of the centers for the control and prevention of diseases (CDC), justified the secretary to the elected officials of a senatorial commission, defending the dismissal of this scientist as well as the abolition of numerous jobs within this structure.
“They did not do their job. Their work was to keep us healthy. I have to dismiss some of these people to make sure that this will not happen again, “he said during a very tense hearing.
Susan Monarez’s dismissal of the CDC head caused a large controversy last week to the United States. The concerned had assured through his lawyers that he was pushed outside as a result of his refusal to validate “non -scientific and dangerous directives” desired by the secretary, known for his antivaccin positions.
Robert Kennedy Jr. was accused Thursday by several Democratic senators of having lied at the beginning of the year under oath by committing to parliamentarians to respect science and arguing that he would not prevent American access to vaccines.
“Sir, you are a charlatan, that’s what you are,” thundered Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell.
“He is in the interest of the country that Robert Kennedy Jr. resigns, and if he does not do, Donald Trump should dismiss him before there are other victims,” said Senator Ron Wyden, another Democrat.
The day before, more than a thousand employees and former employees of the secretary called him to resign in an open letter, accusing him of “endangering” the population.
Since his entry into office, Robert Kennedy Jr. has started a deep overhaul of American health agencies and the country’s vaccination policy, dismissing renowned experts, restricting access to COVVI-19 vaccines or cutting funds to the development of new vaccines.
Measures often taken against scientific consensus and castigated by external experts.
