What Next - Can You Get a COVID Vaccine?
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tenure as HHS Secretary has meant turmoil for the CDC: thousands of employees have either been let go, or are unclear on their employment status; leadership has been stepping down; and there was a shooting at their Atlanta building in August. The result is RFK being yelled at in the Senate, thousands of CDC employees calling for his resignation, and a country less prepared for the next pandemic.
Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, science and global health reporter at the New York Times.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Transcript
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| 0:33.3 | Last week, U.S. Senators spent three hours in a hearing room grappling with an urgent problem. |
| 0:43.4 | The problem is that even though most Americans trust vaccines feel safer when they and their families have access to them, |
| 0:50.9 | the Trump appointee in charge of distributing America's shots, he has got his doubts. |
| 0:57.0 | This hearing will come to order. |
| 1:04.0 | Today we meet to hear from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kenner. |
| 1:10.0 | This hearing was supposed to be about |
| 1:11.4 | the president's plan to make America healthy again. But for Democrats, Robert F. Kennedy's actions, |
| 1:17.5 | as Secretary of Health and Human Services changed the agenda. The United States is in the midst |
| 1:24.8 | of a health care calamity. |
| 1:29.6 | This is Senator Ron Wyden. |
| 1:32.8 | Last week, most of the senior leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention |
| 1:35.4 | were fired, or they resigned after refusing |
| 1:39.5 | to bow to Robert Kennedy's unceasing crusade |
| 1:44.0 | against vaccines. |
| 1:46.7 | I travel to Brockport. |
| 1:50.0 | We've known from the beginning, of course, how RFK Jr. feels about vaccines. |
| 1:55.0 | But it's worth ticking off everything he's done. |
... |
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