{"id":23746,"date":"2025-02-01T02:21:05","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T09:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hickenlooper-questions-rfk-jr-about-trust-in-science-eliminating-bias\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:42:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:42:05","slug":"hickenlooper-questions-rfk-jr-about-trust-in-science-eliminating-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hickenlooper-questions-rfk-jr-about-trust-in-science-eliminating-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"Hickenlooper questions RFK Jr. about trust in science, eliminating bias"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Robert
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing for his pending confirmation on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper took a nonconfrontational approach to questioning Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, in a Thursday hearing at the Senate\u2019s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.<\/p>\n

The hearing followed Kennedy\u2019s appearance Wednesday at a contentious hearing with the Senate Committee on Finance, where Sen. Michael Bennet grilled him on his past statements on abortion and his reported conspiracy theories. Only the Finance Committee will vote on whether to advance Kennedy\u2019s nomination to the full chamber, but that vote has not yet been scheduled, according to Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Republicans seemed to support Kennedy at the Wednesday hearing, but Bill Cassidy, R-La., who sits on both committees, said at the Thursday hearing that Kennedy\u2019s history of questioning vaccines was concerning to him. Republicans have a one-seat majority on the Finance Committee, so if all Democrats and Cassidy vote against the nomination, it will not ever reach the full Senate.<\/p>\n

Like the day prior, Kennedy repeatedly said he supports vaccines at the Thursday hearing, but he refused to say that childhood vaccines do not cause autism. The link between childhood vaccines and autism has been widely disproved. Kennedy founded the anti-vaccine group the Children\u2019s Health Defense but resigned as chairman in December.<\/p>\n

\u201cNews reports and many in the hearing yesterday (Wednesday) have claimed that I\u2019m anti-vaccine and anti-industry,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWell, I\u2019m neither.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hickenlooper\"
Hickenlooper<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Hickenlooper said he was still \u201cvery concerned\u201d about Kennedy\u2019s history opposing vaccines but began by asking Kennedy about Trump\u2019s commitment to continuing a program that allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spoken to President Trump about negotiations,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cHe\u2019s absolutely committed to negotiating lower drug prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

On prescription drug prices, Trump rescinded <\/a>a 2022 Biden Administration executive order<\/a> that directed the HHS to explore other ways to reduce drug costs for Medicare and Medicaid patients. That does not affect the price caps set by the Inflation Reduction Act, like the $35 cap on insulin for Medicare patients.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper followed up by asking Kennedy about preventing chronic illness in America, something Kennedy has said will be one of his main objectives if confirmed.<\/p>\n

Kennedy responded that \u201cwe should be moving to value-based care, which includes prevention,\u201d and that the agencies under HHS should \u201cidentify the toxins that are contributing to diseases and eliminate them.\u201d<\/p>\n

On mifepristone, the abortion pill, Kennedy repeated that he would enforce the president\u2019s policy. Kennedy said at Wednesday\u2019s hearing that Trump had asked him to investigate the safety of the drug, which was originally approved in 2000.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper pressed Kennedy for assurance that, if there were further studies on the drug, he would \u201cmake sure that there\u2019s no bias, to the best of our human ability, to twist those results in any way to support that policy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy answered broadly, saying that he would commit to allowing the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee to help choose researchers and approve protocols for studies at the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I want is good science, and I would love input from this committee on any study that we do,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cThere\u2019s many ways that studies are flawed, and you can correct those at the outset in a lot of ways. So absolutely I will work with you to make sure that it\u2019s science that you\u2019re satisfied with and I\u2019m satisfied with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper replied, \u201cI\u2019ll hold you to it,\u201d before moving to question Kennedy about his past of doubting vaccines and promoting conspiracy theories. He asked about Kennedy\u2019s claim that Lyme disease was a militarily engineered bioweapon, something Bennet had pressed him on the previous day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t that reckless?\u201d he asked. \u201cAren\u2019t you then promoting this anti-science, this conspiracy about Lyme disease in this case, but the same thing about some of these vaccine issues?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy replied that he \u201cnever endorsed the issue,\u201d only that he said \u201cit\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a question from Bennet the previous day, Kennedy said he \u201cprobably did\u201d say that Lyme disease was a militarily engineered bioweapon.<\/p>\n

Kathryn Squyres is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ksquyres@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kennedy\u2019s nomination faces uncertain future<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,315,1651,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-sen-john-hickenlooper","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78243,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746\/revisions\/78243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23746"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}