RFK Jr. set to testify before Senate Finance Committee amid CDC turmoil, vaccine changes

This morning, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said to testify on Capitol Hill amid turmoil at the CDC and backlash to his vaccine policy. The moves have prompted major medical groups and more than 1,000 current and former employees across the Department of Health and Human Services to call on Kennedy to resign. The group of employees saying, our country needs a leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue, not disregard decades of life-saving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress, and decimate programs that kept us safe. Kennedy defending the direction he has taken the public health agency, saying he's working to restore public trust. Today's hearing comes a day after Florida became the first state to eliminate vaccine mandates, a major shift that health experts are calling dangerous. The state's surgeon general explaining why. Who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body? But many health experts are warning this could put other children in schools at risk. Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC and former ABC chief medical correspondent, saying, as a pediatrician and as a parent, it's absolutely frightening, the idea that children could go to school and be unvaccinated. That puts them at risk and others around them who may have underlying medical conditions. As kids head back to school, strong reaction among parents. It should be the parents' choice whether they're vaccinated. Very concerning. I would be concerned with other children who weren't vaccinated, you know, and maybe possibly making my child sick. It comes as multiple reports say HHS Secretary Kennedy has chosen seven new members to join the agency's panel of vaccine experts. That's the panel that decides what vaccines insurance companies and Medicaid are required to cover. The New York Times reports at least three of the new members have been critical of vaccines or vaccine mandates. Some Democratic-led states are taking matters into their own hands. California, Oregon and Washington are teaming up to form their own health care alliance to protect vaccines. Nicole D'Antonio, ABC News, Washington.