(TNND) — Republican senators who are also doctors stood up for vaccines during this week's hearing with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic.

Senators of both parties grilled Kennedy over his statements and actions since taking the helm at Health and Human Services, including the big changes to vaccine policy.

“I'm approaching this as a doctor, not as a senator,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana. “I am concerned about children's health, seniors’ health, all of our health.”

Cassidy applauded Kennedy’s position on transparency, but that’s where the praise ended.

Cassidy criticized Kennedy’s overhaul of the expert advisory panel that develops vaccine recommendations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He criticized Kennedy for canceling research funding for mRNA technology, with which COVID-19 vaccines were rapidly developed during the pandemic.

And he told Kennedy that his vaccine policies were making it harder for people to get the immunizations they wanted.

“I would say effectively we're denying people vaccine,” Cassidy said.

Kennedy, who was testifying before the Senate Finance Committee for a hearing on President Donald Trump’s health care agenda, previously announced that the government would stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women.

Kennedy remade the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and canceled nearly $500 million in government funding for mRNA vaccine development.

Kennedy ousted the new CDC director, who alleged in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that she was pressured to “preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.”

And the Food and Drug Administration last week narrowed its approval for new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax.

Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming who, like Cassidy, is a doctor, also voiced support for vaccines.

Barrasso cited polling that found most Americans, including over 80% of Trump voters, want vaccine recommendations to come from trained physicians, scientists and public health experts.

“Over the last 50 years, vaccines are estimated to have saved 154 million lives worldwide,” Barrasso said at the hearing. “I support vaccines. I'm a doctor. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I've grown deeply concerned. The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership of the National Institute of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the recently confirmed director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired. Americans don't know who to rely on.”

Another Republican doctor on the committee, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, declared his support for vaccines but also declared his support for Kennedy’s “measured approach” and “transparency” regarding vaccines.

“You're trying to empower parents here,” Marshall said while displaying a board showing that children get 76 vaccine “jabs” by the time they hit age 18.

Marshall later made the point on Fox News that not every person needs every vaccine.

In the exchange with Marshall, Kennedy pushed back on the assertion that he’s against vaccines.

“I say I'm not anti-vaccine,” Kennedy said. “Saying I'm anti-vaccine is like saying I'm anti-medicine. Well, I'm pro medicine, but I understand some medicines harm people. Some of them have risks. Some of them have benefits that outweigh those risks for certain populations. And the same is true with vaccines.”

Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University's Pandemic Center, said Friday that Kennedy’s views on vaccines “are so far off any kind of normal factual place” that many believe he is “uniquely unqualified for the role of HHS secretary.”

“I'm not surprised that the senators on both sides were really kind of in disbelief about the things he was saying, because they are just truly outrageous. ... They're just lies,” Nuzzo said.

And Nuzzo was glad to see Republican senators who are doctors standing up for the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

“They may not always be senators, but they will always be doctors,” she said. “And they have to uphold the oath that they've taken in becoming doctors.”

Was it politically risky for the Republican senators to criticize Trump’s health secretary at the hearing?

Barrasso, who is also the majority whip, is in the clear, said Oklahoma State University politics professor Seth McKee.

Barrasso isn’t up for reelection until 2030.

“But Cassidy, I don't know,” McKee said.

Cassidy does face reelection next year, and McKee noted that he’s drawing primary challengers.

Cassidy is also a “unicorn” as one of just seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump at his impeachment trial following the 2021 riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol.

Cassidy fell in line and approved Kennedy during his confirmation process earlier this year, and McKee said that might’ve been an olive branch to get back in Trump’s good graces.

“I think it was just that much of a razor's edge, thinking about where Cassidy is politically,” McKee said.

But McKee said Cassidy showed what he really thinks of Kennedy when he was grilling him at this week’s hearing.

“It really speaks to his true intentions, which was he never should have voted for Kennedy in the first place,” McKee said. “But it wasn't really a profile in courage. That's not what it was.”

McKee said Cassidy was smart to include praise for Trump during the hearing, applauding the president’s Operation Warp Speed COVID-19 vaccine development during the early part of the pandemic.

“But it's the weirdest thing that Trump can't go to a rally and puff his chest out over one of the greatest accomplishments of his administration, because so many MAGA people are anti-vaxxers,” McKee said.

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During the hearing, Cassidy brought up an email from a doctor friend who said physicians are now confused about who can get the COVID-19 vaccine.

And Cassidy said medical professionals are now worried about liability if vaccines that aren’t on the current CDC list are given to a patient.

Barrasso also said he’s heard from medical colleagues who are worried that safe, proven vaccines are in jeopardy.

Nuzzo said people shouldn’t confuse vaccine recommendations with vaccine mandates.

And she said Kennedy’s efforts to rescind some vaccine recommendations will have serious impacts for people.

“Vaccine recommendations are really important for deciding who is able to get vaccines,” Nuzzo said. “And it's not just whether you'll be turned away at a pharmacy if you try to go get it. It's about whether your insurance will reimburse for it or if you have to pay out of pocket. And it's also about whether those pharmacies will even stock the vaccine in the first place.”

Nuzzo was sympathetic to people who became frustrated by COVID-19 vaccine mandates during the pandemic.

But she said COVID-19 vaccines and routine immunizations for kids are very different.

She acknowledged open-ended questions about how best to use COVID-19 vaccines going forward.

But childhood vaccines for measles-mumps-rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis B and more are safe, effective and time-tested, she said.

“The vast majority of the American people not only support vaccines, but they believe it is parents’ duties to vaccinate their children, not only to protect those children, but also to protect others in the community,” Nuzzo said.