Thursday, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, Sen. Rand Paul and physician from Kentucky asked Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra a question about natural immunity during the hearing:
Mr. Becerra, are you familiar with an Israeli study that had 2.5 million patients and found that the vaccinated group was actually seven times more likely to get infected with COVID-19 than people who had gotten COVID-19 naturally?
The HHS Secretary had not.
Paul then went on unrelentlessly: “Well, you’d think you might want to be” familiar with the study, Paul responded. “If you’re going to travel the country insulting the millions of Americans, including NBA star Jonathan Isaac, who have had COVID, recovered, look at a study with 2.5 million people and say, ‘Well, you know what? It looks like my immunity is as good as the vaccine or not, and in a free country, maybe I ought to be able to make that decision.’”
Instead, Paul said, you’ve called Jonathan Isaac and others, myself included, “flat-earthers”. Are you a doctor- a medical doctor?
I have worked over 30 years on health policy, Becerra replied.
“You’ve made these decisions — a lawyer with no scientific background, no medical degree. This is an arrogance coupled with an authoritarianism that is unseemly and un-American,” Paul said. “You, sir, are ignoring the science.”
