United States Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr sparred with US senators over his management of health agencies and past comments about COVID-19 vaccines and antidepressants. At several points during the hours-long Senate Finance Committee hearing on Thursday, Kennedy said senators were making up information or distorting his record.“You are being dishonest right now,” he told Democrat Senator Tina Smith after she said he had blamed antidepressants on a recent school shooting in her home state of Minnesota.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listWhen Republican Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana said the government was “effectively” denying people vaccines, Kennedy retorted, “You’re wrong.“You’re just making stuff up to scare people, and it’s a lie,” he said to Senator Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat who said Kennedy was limiting access to COVID-19 vaccines.PolitiFact fact-checked some of the most notable back-and-forth moments from Kennedy’s testimony.How many Americans died from COVID?Senator Mark Warner asked Kennedy whether he accepts that “a million Americans died from COVID.”“I don’t know how many died,” Kennedy said.“You’re the secretary of Health and Human Services,” Warner said. “You don’t have any idea how many Americans died from COVID?”“I don’t think anybody knows that because there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC,” Kennedy said.More than 1 million Americans have died from COVID-19, according to multiple s …
