Selina Simmons-Duffin
speaker
394 appearances
57 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 10 Jun
Selina Simmons-Duffin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 54 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 16.
Appearances
The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to NPR's request for details about the program. Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR News, Washington.
People braved snow and freezing temperatures to protest the firing of government researchers and cuts to academic research currently paused by the courts. Signs read, no one voted for polio and I'd rather be in my lab working on cures for cancer. One of the speakers was Connor Phillips, who told the crowd he has cerebral palsy.
He says after cuts at the National Institutes of Health, he can't continue his research even though he was a postgraduate volunteer. Selina Simmons-Duffin, NPR News, Washington.
Well, first of all, he spent decades as an anti-vaccine activist leading a group called Children's Health Defense, and he believes a thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. I am sure we'll hear a lot about that since this job has broad powers over federal vaccine policy.
He has made millions of dollars over the years suing vaccine makers, and he could profit off of lawsuits against Merck while in this job that regulates drug makers. He also denies that HIV causes AIDS. That is an established scientific fact. And he frequently compared COVID-19 public health measures to Hitler's Germany.
In this role, he would be in charge of the response if there's another pandemic crisis. So there is just so much to talk about. It's really hard to predict how the hearing will play out, but it will definitely be interesting.
They portray him as a changemaker who will direct scientific research towards the root causes of chronic diseases. He's talked a lot about the importance of healthy food and getting additives out of the food supply. I reached a White House spokesperson last week who told me Kennedy has met with more than 60 senators and he's prepared and excited for this process.
Yeah, so this is definitely a strange bedfellow situation. You have Protect Our Care, which is a left-leaning advocacy organization running ads targeting Republican senators saying he's an anti-vaccine extremist. They point to an incident in Samoa, which is a Pacific island that Kennedy visited in 2019 just before a measles outbreak that killed 83 people.
Thousands of doctors have been speaking out, saying infectious diseases like measles, also poliomeningitis, could make a comeback if the federal government stops supporting routine vaccinations. And then you have Kennedy detractors on the right as well.
Well, former Vice President Mike Pence objects to the fact that Kennedy has been supportive of abortion rights. Now Kennedy says he'll go along with Trump's opposition to abortion rights, but Pence does not buy that. And his group, Advancing American Freedom, has been running its own ads against Kennedy.
Also this week, two conservative media outlets, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, ran editorials against his confirmation.
Well, actually, he has two. So today is the hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, and tomorrow is the hearing in the HELP Committee. The Finance Committee will actually vote on his nomination, and after that, it will be voted on by the full Senate.
Pensions.
Okay, thank you.
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