THE NEWS

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his recent statements about vaccines during a congressional hearing on May 14.

“I’m going to tell the truth about everything we know and we don’t know about vaccines,” Kennedy told Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) while testifying before the Senate Health Committee. “I am not going to just tell people that everything is safe and effective if I know there are issues. I need to respect people’s intelligence.”

Several lawmakers expressed concern about Kennedy’s recent comments, which include saying that the protection conferred by the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine wanes over time.

“The result is to undermine faith in the vaccine,” Murphy said.

“It’s kind of like saying, ‘Listen, I think you should swim in that lake, but you know, the lake is probably toxic, and there’s probably a ton of snakes and alligators in that lake, but I think you should swim in it.’ Nobody is going to swim that lake if that’s what you say. I want you to acknowledge that when you say you support the measles vaccine, and then you go out and repeatedly undermine the vaccine, with information that is contested by public health experts, that is not supporting the vaccine.”

Kennedy responded, “If I advise you to swim in a lake that I knew there to be alligators in, wouldn’t you want me to tell you there were alligators in it?

“The reason people have lost faith in this program is that they’ve been lied to by public officials for year after year after year.”

Several outbreaks of measles have appeared in the United States in 2025, including an outbreak in Texas that has spread to hundreds of people. Texas officials say most patients are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the administration of two doses of the MMR vaccine is 97 percent effective against measles.

Studies, including a paper from French researchers, have found that the protection wanes slowly over time.

“We’re always going to have measles, as the vaccine wanes very quickly,” Kennedy said recently at a town hall.

He has also said that the MMR vaccine has side effects and that many vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule have not been tested in randomized, controlled trials against placebos.

“[That] means we don’t understand the risk profile for those products and that’s something that I intend to remedy,” Kennedy told lawmakers on May 14, referring to the Department of Health and Human Services’ announcement that all new vaccines must be tested against placebos before being licensed.

Kennedy testified before the Senate panel and the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee. It was the first time he appeared before Congress since being confirmed in February.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) asked Kennedy, who has said his children received the typical vaccines in their childhood, if he had a child today, would he get that child vaccinated with the MMR shot?

“Probably,” Kennedy said. “I would say my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant.

“I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me. I think if I answer that question directly, that it will seem that I’m giving advice to other people, and I don’t want to be doing that,” Kennedy said, adding that health officials were going to try to outline the pros and cons, or the risks and benefits, of each vaccine.

Pocan tried to get Kennedy to answer the same question for the chickenpox and polio vaccines. The health secretary demurred.

Republicans largely steered clear of vaccines during the hearings. A number of them praised developments under Kennedy, including the banning of some artificial dyes and the focus on cutting costs at the health agency.

“You’ve done more to shine the light on things that average Americans can do to make themselves healthier than almost any secretary that I can recall,” Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) said, “so thank you for that service.”

Boeing has tentatively reached a nonprosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to avoid a June 23 trial over allegations it misled federal regulators about a flight control system tied to two fatal 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019, according to Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter. 

Sources said the deal requires a judge’s approval and would allow the Seattle-based planemaker to avoid entering a guilty plea in the case.

Here are more details from the report: 

Boeing has no longer agreed to plead guilty in the case, prosecutors told family members of crash victims during a Friday meeting, the sources said. The company’s posture changed after a judge rejected a previous plea agreement in December, prosecutors told the family members.

DOJ officials are still weighing whether to proceed with a nonprosecution agreement or take Boeing to trial, a DOJ official said during the meeting. No final decision has been made, and Boeing and DOJ officials have not yet exchanged papers to negotiate final details of any nonprosecution agreement, the official told family members.

In April, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said the planemaker was negotiating with the DoJ to reach a revised plea deal in the criminal fraud case.

“I want this resolved as quickly as anyone,” Ortberg said at a U.S. Senate hearing, referring to the timeline for settling the case. He added, “Hopefully, we’ll have a new agreement here soon.”

Last month, Boeing reached settlements with the families of two victims killed in the March 2019 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX.

In 2021, Boeing accepted responsibility for compensatory damages to the families of the 157 victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash.

Boeing apologized for both crashes last month, saying it “made an upfront commitment to fully and fairly compensate the families and accepted legal responsibility for the accidents. We will continue to work to fairly resolve the claims of the family members.”

Reuters notes that the planemaker has “settled more than 90% of claims from the two 737 MAX accidents and paid billions of dollars in compensation to the families through lawsuits, a deferred prosecution agreement, and other payments.”

Of course, the nonprosecution agreement still requires a judge’s approval and could force Boeing to pay additional fines, implement further internal reforms, or strengthen compliance measures, among other conditions. Those conditions have not yet been released.