Watch: RFK Jr. Confirmation Hearings Shine Light on Vaccines-Autism Debate

Senate confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were “contentious” but garnered unprecedented attention, Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense CEO, said.

Feb 10, 2025

Last week’s Senate confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were “contentious,” but also garnered unprecedented attention, Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) CEO said during this week’s edition of “The Defender In-Depth.”

Holland, along with Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD chief scientific officer, shared their takeaways from the hearings and the Senate Finance Committee’s vote on Tuesday to advance Kennedy’s nomination for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the full Senate.

“Confirmation hearings generally don’t get a lot of media attention,” Holland said. “People don’t really come. It’s kind of proforma. They go through the motions.”

But in Kennedy’s case, “literally thousands of people in the Make America Healthy Again [MAHA] movement … descended on Washington. Literally at least 1,000 people both days last week — and they lined up starting at 3 a.m. to get into the relatively small hearing rooms,” Holland said.

Growing Senate support for examining the link between vaccines and autism

Holland said that despite the sometimes “brutal” questioning Kennedy faced during the hearings, he was able to emphasize the extent and severity of the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S. for both adults and children.

“[Kennedy said] this should be something where we’re united. This is existential … we can’t have a functional country if everybody’s sick,” Holland said.

Holland said Kennedy’s message resonated with several senators who participated in the hearings — as did his call for “gold-standard science” on vaccines. According to Holland, several senators were “very supportive” of examining the link between vaccines and autism.

At several points during the hearings, Kennedy emphasized that he was “pro-vaccine” but also pro “good science.” Holland said these statements are consistent with Kennedy’s longstanding position on vaccines and their safety.

“He is very critical of the safety of vaccines, but he’s not per se against vaccines,” Holland said. Holland said Kennedy called for “unfettered” research to prove whether vaccines are safe and effective, and that if the science demonstrates this, Kennedy would wholeheartedly support those vaccines.

Hooker addressed senators’ claims about the connection between vaccines and autism.

“Sen. [Bill] Cassidy brought up a study … that made a blanket statement that vaccines don’t cause autism.” However, this study looked at only one vaccine — MMR (measles- mumps-rubella) — and one vaccine component, thimerosal, a mercury-containing compound included in multi-dose vaccine vials.

“You cannot make that leap in logic by neglecting 16 different vaccines and myriad other components that have been understudied,” Hooker said. He noted that Kennedy referred to the findings of a recent study showing higher autism rates in 9-year-old children who were vaccinated, a risk that increased as the number of vaccinations grew.

Speaking on the Senate floor following Tuesday’s vote, Cassidy said he and Kennedy “will have an unprecedently close collaborative relationship,” including giving Cassidy a role in HHS hiring decisions. Cassidy said Kennedy agreed to maintain the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and statements on the CDC’s website that vaccines do not cause autism.

While Cassidy’s remarks raised concerns among some of Kennedy’s supporters, Holland said that “on consideration … it’s really a good thing.”

“If Bobby Kennedy can work closely with Bill Cassidy, physician, member of the Republican Party, to pull along the Senate to look at the science, I see that as a real positive,” Holland said.

If Kennedy’s focus on “gold-standard” science on vaccines can help sway Cassidy’s opinions, “then we’ll have this fantastic new advocate who’s a physician and a member of the Senate,” she added.

Hooker said that although public health agencies have refused to study the link between vaccines and autism, there are already “many, many studies already out there” that could be brought to Cassidy’s attention. Some of these studies use unvaccinated control groups to show the connection.

Hooker said government-run, taxpayer-funded databases such as Vaccine Safety Datalink “need to be made public” — a suggestion Kennedy made during the hearings.

“Those databases need to be made public so independent scientists can look at them because the science that has come out of those databases … has been highly flawed,” Hooker said.

Holland said Cassidy’s statements may also help Kennedy gain support among Senate Republicans leading up to next week’s vote. Kennedy’s remarks about Big Pharma’s donations to several senators, including Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — who had a series of contentious exchanges with Kennedy during the hearings — likely also helped.

“I think that, for the public, it was really helpful that Bobby called out all of these senators,” Holland said.

Grassroots activism has helped RFK Jr.’s nomination advance

Holland credited a broad grassroots movement, including the support of “MAHA moms,” in helping to advance Kennedy’s nomination to the full Senate. She said Republican senators “understood that Bobby Kennedy is an avatar for a very important social movement that was critical in President [Donald] Trump’s electoral win.”

According to Holland, grassroots support for Kennedy has grown because “people have this perception that Bobby Kennedy is a truth teller about the epidemic of chronic disease, and they trust that he is willing to do something about it.”

Hooker said the hearings — and the extensive debate over the link between vaccines and autism — brought more public attention to the issue than ever before.

“It’s absolutely amazing that we have so many media outlets talking about this,” Hooker said. “These things have not been said from these chambers, and it’s been impossible — there’s been almost a moratorium on even broaching the subject.”

After the hearings, Trump called for more research into the link between vaccines and autism, in a post on Truth Social. “20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!! Thank You!” Trump wrote.

“This is an amazing focus on this issue that we at Children’s Health Defense have been following for years,” Holland said. “We want to have healthy children. That is the aspiration of every adult, every parent, and I think Bobby really embodies that.”

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